


A Challenging Winter

by Bulmaveg_Otaku



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, I suck at titles, Some Fluff, Some Humor, Some angst, Wintershock Challenge, also at angst, but i tried, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulmaveg_Otaku/pseuds/Bulmaveg_Otaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>7 day challenge from tumblr: Wintershock's Winter Challenge +1 of smut because if you managed to wade through all the angst with me on this one, you deserve it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: snow/snowmen/snow angels

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts can be found here: http://mcuwintershock.tumblr.com/post/136424414863/winter-challenge
> 
> Thanks for the lovely hosts at MCUWintershock for putting this on. It was fun!

The first time Bucky Barnes lays eyes on Darcy Lewis she is standing in the falling snow outside of the Avenger’s Facility, just standing, and spinning, her arms out at her sides as she tips her head back and smiles up at the tumbling flakes. 

He’s viewing her through a scope, doing recon on the facility and trying to figure out the best way to infiltrate the compound so he can leave Steve Rogers a message to stop looking for him, one that might actually get through the man’s thick skull, but he’s distracted by this girl and her simple joy. He can see her face well enough through the lens of his scope that he notices the way the falling snow catches in her eyelashes, making her look like one of those Fae creatures that had danced around the illustrated boarder of the book his mother used to read bedtime fairy tales to him and his sisters from. The memory combined with the image are enough to make the breath catch in his throat, frozen and crystalline.

She is so beautiful.

He is pulled from his trance by her turning and waving towards the doors she’d come out of just moments before. He can barely make out the sound of her voice, muffled by the quite press of the snowfall, but he manages to catch the words ‘come’ and ‘play.’ He follows the direction of her call to see a small, elfin woman huddling in the doorway of the entrance, shaking her head and laughing at the other woman.

She dismisses her friend’s refusal with a disgruntled wave of her hands, then turns and puts her face back up into the snow, sticking her tongue out to catch a few of the flakes in her opened mouth. 

This image strikes him with another memory, one of him and Steve doing the same thing until Steve’s mother, Sarah, called them inside to dry off and warm up so they wouldn’t catch cold. This has shifted Bucky’s focus from her eyes to her mouth, wide and lush and red, looking warm and wet and smiling.

It sets his chest to burning with a strange warmth that feels lovely and familiar, and strange, and draws him in even more.  

He watches her for a few minutes longer before she finally starts to shiver from the cold, wraps her arms around herself, and rubs her hands up and down them trying to turn friction into heat. Then she turns to run back towards the doors, her boots leaving impressions in the inch or so of snow that has fallen over the last half hour. It’s starting to snow even harder and he doesn’t think his visibility will last much longer anyway, so, once she’s gone back inside, he packs up his equipment and slinks back into the woods behind him.

He makes a mental note to remember her face, and lets himself daydream for a moment about what it might be like if he lets himself go in from the cold, taken in by his best friend from another lifetime, and his world becoming something other then the constant hiding, and running, and searching nightmare that it’s been for the last year and a half. If his life ever did become something even vaguely resembling normal, and safe, and free, he thinks it might be nice to find out that girl’s name and be the one she calls to when she wants to dance in the snow and lick up the downy white flakes as they fall.

That might be nice. 

He snaps himself out of it as he reaches his vehicle. He doesn’t really have time for daydreams or winter fairy girls who have nothing better to do then to play in the snow.

He isn’t ready to admit to himself that the call of such a person, warm and waiting for him, is like an ember of warmth in the cold, harsh reality of his current existence, and he’s certainly not willing to admit that the hope that some person might exist for him like that someday is enough to want him to give himself up that much sooner to the persistent chase of the man that he knew, the one that wears the red, white, and blue.

But perhaps even he can admit that it’s at least a step in that direction, a step towards wanting to be ready for something different.

He stashes his gear in the saddlebags of his motorcycle, pulls his goggles on and tightens the hood of his jacket around his face and straightens his gloves. Then he climbs on and drives off into the building storm. And if maybe he opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue to catch a few of the frozen flakes as he drives off, well, there’s no one around to know about it but himself.

And he isn’t telling.


	2. Day 2: hot chocolate/peppermint

“Oh, yes! Come to mama!” the feminine voice calls from the kitchen, jolting Bucky from his doze on the couch in the common area.

He wasn’t asleep, not really. Just zoned out and working on relaxing. He thinks, sometimes, that it’s pretty funny that relaxing takes so much effort. 

“Oh baby, oh baby, you just wait till I get to taste all of your hot and creamy goodness, my lovely Steven,” is the next thing he hears from the kitchen, making Bucky tense up, all his hard won ease going right out the window. He can’t have heard that right? Can he?

Is Stevie making time with some girl in the kitchen? In the middle of the day? 

He is both proud and disturbed at the thought of it. And maybe a a little jealous, too, because he’s pretty sure he recognizes that exuberant voice, now that he’s had a second to process.

There’s a sinful moan and the sound of something being torn.

Jesus, he has to figure out a way to escape before he’s noticed. The open floor plan of the common area means he will be visible from the kitchen the second he sits up. 

“Yes! Daddy knows what I like…” Comes next and Bucky’s sure his face is burning red. It feels hot enough. That’s for sure. 

He’s considering a stomach crawl for the exit when he hears, “Now, who do I like enough to share with? I’ll have to give Jane some, that’s a given, and Sam will probably beg me for a taste until I give in, so I might as well just give in right away. Vision should definitely experience some of my delicious steamy French Vanilla. Clint and Wanda are out. Those two will probably just end up stealing some anyway, but their gonna have to work for it, what with how they keep using my ass for target practice. OH, Bucky! He really needs to try this!”

Um…

“What the hell, Lewis?” He can’t help but ask as he sits up and turns to see her standing at the counter talking to… herself, apparently. Or rather, to a large, shallow box filled with something he can’t see.

“Oh, hey, Barnes! I didn’t know you were there! Come over here so you can try some one of these incredible Cocoa mixes that my parents shipped to me from back west,” She says, totally casually as if it didn’t’ just sound like she was trying to set up an Avenger’s Orgy in the kitchen.

“Where’s Steve?” He asks warily, looking around.   
   
She just shrugs. “He’s supposed to be in a meeting with Natasha and Rhodey, I think. Why? You need me to get him?” She finally looks up at him, her face soft with empathy and helpfulness. 

“No, I’m good. I just thought…” He stands and walks around to look curiously into the box in front of her. All he can see is it’s full of many small canister’s with mostly all black kids. “Though I heard you say…”

Darcy laughs then. “Oh, no… Not Steven, Stephen’s. With a P-H.” She lifts one of the cans and shows him. Stephen’s Mint Truffle Hot Cocoa Mix, reads the front of the black and green label.

“It’s really good stuff,” she says, cradling the can between her lovely breasts in a protective manner. “You can’t find it in stores here, and I miss it when I’m away from home For a long time. I could order it on Amazon, but they want, like 35 dollars for some of the better favors and that is just too much dough for me to shell out, especially when I have connections.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him and starts pulling the cans out.

“Well, what’s your poison, Barnes? I’ve got raspberry, hazelnut, amaretto, Mexican Hot Chocolate, uh…” Her words stumble to a halt as she watches him lift a red and black and white labeled can from one corner. It says French Vanilla and he’s glad that she wasn’t calling his best friend by some kinky pet name. He tries not to judge, but that was just… no.

“You can’t have that one,” She says and reaches for it. He pulls it away narrowing his eyes at her. 

“You willing to share your stash with the android, but not the cyborg, eh?” He puts it behind his back and leans away. “You playing favorites, Lewis?”

“It’s not that,” she says, and he’s charmed to notice a light sweep of pink on her cheeks. “He will only need a taste and the flavor will be forever recorded in his memory banks to be enjoyed when ever he wants, without drinking all of my most favorite hot beverage ever.”

She walks around the counter, and he can see the tense lines of her muscles mean her casual tone and easy smiling face are nothing but a deceptive mask. She’s ready to pounce. “I’m familiar with your extensive apatite and infamous sweet tooth, Barnes. Once you taste my creamy goodness, you aren’t ever going to want to let go.”

He swallows hard and notices the twinkle in her eye that means she knows exactly how dirty that sounds, that it was completely intentional. 

“Well, now I’m definitely not giving it up, Lewis,” he says, body poised and ready to evade.

Her eyes widen slightly as she takes another step closer. “Do you want to be moved to the naughty list, Barnes?”

He can’t help the smirk that slides up his face. “Pretty sure that’s where I deserve to be, sugar.”

Her lips twitch and she glances down, trying to lure him into a false sense of security. “Oh, no doubt,” she whispers and then she’s moving. She lunges, her arms spread to try and go around his back, but he’s more than ready for her. He ducks under her reach and sprints off in the opposite direction.  

“My precious!” He hears her shriek behind him and he grins as he moves into the hallway, becoming one with the shadows and preparing to tap into his very special skill set to evade and defend. 

He’ll give it back eventually, but she’s gonna have to work for it.

He smiles and does what he does best, and doesn’t even realize that for the first time in a long time, he’s more relaxed than he’s been in a really long time.

He definitely wants a taste of Lewis’ hot, creamy goodness.


	3. Day 3: skiing/ice skating/ sledding/winter sports

The phone chirped repeatedly from his bedroom while Bucky finished brushing his teeth and combing back his wet hair before walking in to check on it. He had 7 new texts.

From: Darcy Lewis: **Barnes, you up?** January 21 @ 7:37AM

From: Darcy Lewis: **Hey, Barnes, wake up!** January 21 @ 7:37AM

From: Darcy Lewis: **Bucky!** January 21 @ 7:37AM  

From: Darcy Lewis: **Did you see?** January 21 @ 7:38AM

From: Darcy Lewis: **I have a mission for you B**.January 21 @ 7:38AM

From: Darcy Lewis: **Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to steal the Frisbee of Freedom and bring it to the North Garage at 10:30 AM** January 21 @ 7:38AM

From: Darcy Lewis: **Do you accept, Sargent Barnes?** January 21 @ 7:39AM

Bucky chuckled and shook his head before texting back.

**Copy that, Lewis**

Then he walked down the hall to Steve’s studio, peaked his head around the door frame and said, “Hey, punk, can I borrow your shield today. Lewis has a mission for me.

Steve turned from his drafting table and gave him a startled look. “What kind of mission?”

He shrugged and tucked his shirt in. “I didn’t ask. You know how she is.”

His friend gave him a knowing smile. “Sure, Buck, whatever you need.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at his friend and his assumptions, then went to make his breakfast.

* * *

 

At 10:30 AM on the dot, Bucky strolled out of the elevator and into the North Garage of the Avenger’s Facility. Darcy was leaning against one of the support columns just inside, and glanced up from her phone as he stepped out.

“Oh, good. You’re on time and you brought the goods,” she said, sounding pleased.

“You said there was a mission…” he replied and she grinned at him mischievously.

“Cool, so how’d you do it? Did you drug Steve? Knock him out? Distract him with a fake phone call from the president?” Her glee was obvious, and Bucky had to fight a smile.

“I asked him if I could borrow it,” he dead-panned and watched as her face fell.

“Lame, Barnes! Totally lame. You’re actually no fun at all, you know that?” she huffed and grabbed his arm to pull him down the line of vehicles. “You’re lucky I’m enough fun for both of us.”

She pressed a button an the key fob in her hand and the headlights of one of the motor pool’s SUV’s flashed. Darcy walked around and pulled open the driver’s door.

“Where we headed?” Bucky asked, pausing at with his hand on the passenger door.

“Top Secret,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“Lewis,” Bucky drawled, insistent and wary now. 

She stepped up on the running board and looked at him over the top of the car. One of her eyebrows was raised in challenge as she stared him down stubbornly for a few silent minutes. Finally, she rolled her eyes. “It’s a surprise, ya blockhead, now are you gonna come along peacefully or am I gonna have to put you in a sleeper hold?”

Bucky snorted, but opened the door and climbed in. “I’m worried you might actually try it, and hurt yourself in the process.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” she tossed at him and started up the engine. “I’ve got moves you ain’t never seen, Barnes.”

And there it was, the flirty innuendo that flew quick and easy between them, the reason his best friend smirk at him whenever he talked about Foster’s lab assistant, the reason he had to ignore butterflies in his stomach when he noticed 7 new messages on his phone first thing on a Saturday morning.

“Someday you’ll have to show me your movies, Lewis,” he said smirking back at her. “I’m sure they’re real cute. Like that video you showed me of that ninja kitten fighting a Doberman.”

She puts her mock offended face on and glares at him from the side of her eye as she pulls out of the parking spot and exit’s the garage. “Laugh it up, Frosty, but someday… You’ll see. When you least expect it. Wham! I’ll have you right where I want you.”

“Sure, Lewis. Whatever you say.”  
  
                                    

* * *

  
  
She drove them a few miles away, steering the vehicle carefully, (for Darcy), over the fresh powder that had fallen the night before without incident. There’s at least another foot and a half, on top of the 10” they had from last week and he was glad she waited till after the plows had time to clear most of the main roads.

She pulled to a stop at the end of a short side road that runs along the top of a large hill. The entire area is a constant blanket of white, pristine and breathtaking. Darcy hopped out and opened the back to start sorting out cold weather gear for the two of them.

As he was wrapping a scarf around his neck and taking the gloves from her he put two and two together. He started chuckling as she finished and walked around to his side to pull out the shield he’d tossed into the back seat.

“Seriously, doll?” he asked, eyebrow going up. “Don’t you think the Captain might disapprove of you using his one of a kind weapon as a sled?”

“Well, yeah, that’s why I told you to steal it, so he wouldn’t even know it was gone and would ask no questions, but somebody had to do things the easy way, so now that same somebody is going to have be the one to face the awkward questions. You can tell Steve I lead you away under false pretenses and overpowered you, if it makes you feel better.” Darcy grinned at him cheekily then walked over to the crest of the hill.

“Okay, fine, who’s going first then?” Bucky asked.

“What do you I mean, first? We’re gonna share. At the same time. I’m not carrying this thing back up the hill by myself, even if it is lighter than it looks,” she debated, dropping it into the soft snow.

“Both of us at the same time?” Bucky asked, sounding shocked. “I hate to break it to you, but there’s no way we’re both gonna fit on it, sweetheart.”

“Sure we are, we’re just going to have to get creative,” she said with a salacious grin.

“Uh…” He said, his mind taking that mental picture and running with it.

“It’ll be fine, Barnes. Here, I’ll show you. Sit down and cross your legs,” she said, gesturing at the shield.

Knowing this was either a fantastic idea, or about to end extremely badly, he obeyed. As soon as he was seated, his legs folded before him so that his feet were resting on the medal disk, even if his knees hung over the edge a bit, Darcy stepped in front of him and maneuvered so that she was standing with her feet on either side of him, then plopped down into his lap and wrapped her legs around his waist.

With a little wiggle she wrapped her arms around his neck. “See, it’s cozy.”

“Cozy,” he grunted and his hands went instinctively around her back to help her settle her ass comfortably into the space between his thighs. “This seems dangerous,” he said, his voice low, his breath puffing warm between their faces.

“Wouldn’t be near as much fun if it wasn’t,” she said. “You’ll keep me safe, right, Barnes?”

He nodded dumbly and tried not to stare at her mouth.

“Okay then, you ready?”

He grunted again and felt her shift her legs and push off behind them. The breached the edge of the hill and tipped slightly as they started moving faster and faster down the incline. Darcy squeaked and squeezed him tighter, and he pulled her closer, so he could balance them better only, of course.

About halfway down, from what he could tell, they started to spin as they went over a bit of a bump and their weight stiffed to one side.

“Holy shit!” Darcy cursed and her face light up with terrified delight as they twisted down the side of the hill.

As they neared the bottom, Bucky noticed another mound of snow covering some I identified object and he pulled her fully against him. “Hang on!” He growled and leaned them the opposite way, trying to avoid the obstacle. 

They missed it, but with their speed and his shift in weight, they ended up going over, the shield spilling them into the soft powder where they rolled and tumbled for another 10 or 12 feet before they finally came to a laughing, shrieking stop.   
Bucky stared down into her face, their bodies making a deep depression in the deep snow, as it stretches up around them.

She’s laughing and breathless and he can’t help but smile down at her and think how that was even more fun then the cyclone at Coney Island. Her laughter faded away as she smiled up at him. “See, Barnes. Now I have you right where I want you. What did I tell you? My moves are epic.”

“You might need to get your vision checked, Darce. It looks like I came out on top this time,” he teased, but she only smiled wider.

“Exactly.”

“Hm…” he said, narrowing his eyes, and trying to ignore the siren’s call of her warmth as he pushed up and climbed off of her and offered her and hand to help her up. 

She brushed snow off of her and looked up the hill squinting enough that he wondered if she really was wearing her contacts after all. “That’s a really long way up,” she whined. 

“Come on, lazy bones,” he laughed, knowing her animosity for physical exertion ran deep and her complaining would probably only get louder and more explicit. He scooped up the shield, which was sticking out of the snow a few feet away.

“I forgot how much I hate this part!” Darcy said, glaring at the hill. 

Bucky sighed and then bent and flung her over his shoulder.

“Bucky!” she squealed, her feet kicking lightly, but not enough to throw her up. He began trudging up the hill, one hand holding the shield, while the other braced against the back of her thighs to hold her in place. She stopped struggling after a half dozen steps and he felt her go still. “Actually, this is kind of awesome. Way to make yourself useful, Barnes. I knew there was a good reason to drag you along.”

“Besides my easy access to the Frisbee of Freedom, you mean?” he said, tone sarcastic.

“Right, besides that,” she laughed. “So, you want to try standing up this time?”

They reached the top and their sledding adventure continued. There were many, and varied combinations and positions, some working better than others.  
Darcy’s favorite was Bucky kneeling while she clung to him, riding piggyback.   
Bucky’s favorite was him straddling her calves while she knelt in front of him, her backside pushed back against his hips and his arms around her. 

There were plenty of hilarious wipe outs and close calls, and the occasional joke about being top heavy and a lecture or two about balance and center of gravity. Overall, it was a great success.

As  they climbed the hill for the last time, her over his shoulder, elbows resting against his shoulder blades, he heard the slither of cloth over skin and he had to choke down thoughts of watching her get undressed. It was possible that he was slightly hot and bothered, despite the chill creeping in through his winter layers.  
She shifted a bit and he felt his shirt being lifted. Suddenly, a soft block of ice was pressing against his lower back and he jerked to a halt, spine straightening reflexively. Darcy was giggling as she pushed her fingers under the edge of his jeans and wiggled them against the back of his hip.

Bucky forced himself to take a deep breath. “You sure you wanna start that war, babe?” He asked, lifting his left hand and wiggling his metal fingers. He felt her twist and look over her shoulder, her eyes drawn by his movement. 

“Uh…” She slowly withdrew her hand and he sighed, not sure it it was from relief or disappointment. “No?”

“Damn straight,” he said and set her down next to the SUV. “You should think before you act, Darce. Make sure you’re prepared for the consequences of your actions before you cross some line you can’t uncross.” His eyes were on hers, as he looked down into her face, pale except for spots of rosy color on her cheeks and chin and nose. 

“Fair enough,” Darcy said seriously and he figured she’d caught his double meaning well enough.

“Okay then,” he muttered and made to step back.

“The thing is, I’m more of a leap before I look kind of girl,” she said reached up to grip the front of his jacket and pull him back towards her, and he thought, ’ _this is the moment._ ’ He was finally going to kiss Darcy Lewis.

She fluttered her dark, thick lashes up at him and parted her lips slightly.   
He bit back a moan and closed his eyes, leaning towards her.

Which is, of course, when she stuck the handful of snow down the front of his shirt.

He shouted in surprise and jumped back.

“How do ya like my moves now, Barnes?!” She laughed evilly and turned to scramble for the driver’s door.

“Oh, now you’re gonna get it!” he growled and went in for the kill.

Darcy never stood a chance.


	4. Day 4: mittens/hats/thermals/boots/winter clothes

The whole thing is Wilson’s idea.

Bucky’s problem isn’t that it is a bad idea, though it probably is. Bucky’s problem is that the whole thing seems totally deceptive and manipulative- disrespectful somehow. He’s also more than a little embarrassed that his friend has put enough thought into his situation with Darcy that he’s been able to come up with his idea.

“I don’t think I’m going to make it tonight, Sam,” he tells the man as they’re finishing their laps around the indoor track.

“You don’t have the option of backing out now. You RSVP’d,” Sam says simply, as if he’s already won the argument that they’re about to have.

Bucky shakes his head and looks away. “Actually, Steve was the one that accepted the invite for me. I didn’t do anything. So it doesn’t count.”

“Still counts,” Sam disagrees instantly, and starts going through his stretches. It has the kind of finality about it that Bucky finds infinitely irritating.

He sighs heavily, lifting his right ankle and gripping it with his right hand so that he can stretch his quad. He doesn’t even know how to deal with Sam when he’s acting like this. Aside from punching him or getting out his assortment of deadly weapons to threaten the man with, but that seems like overkill.

“Look, you have to come. I set this whole thing up for you, man. I’ve helped create a low-pressure environment where you and Darcy-girl can be your usual flirty selves and added in the element of possible nakedness in order to encourage you both to take your relationship from UST to RST.” Sam says, his voice slightly strained from his bent over position as he stretches his calves.

“It’s not like that with Darcy,” Bucky argues as he switches to his left leg.

“Oh, it’s exactly like that,” Wilson says in his over the top way that Bucky usually finds amusing. “You both want to get it on, but you’re, like, stuck in neutral. So, unless you’re willing to pull your head out of your ass and just tell the girl how you feel, you’re coming tonight.”

Bucky can only scowl. It’s not that he’s afraid of telling her he really likes her, that he wants her to be his and wants to follow through on all the things they’ve been teasing each other with for months, it’s not about fear at all it’s just… Every time things seem like they might be getting serious, like they might actually close to taking the next step, she pulls away.

Something is holding her back, which is holding him back. Until he figures out what her hang up is, it just seems safer to wait. It isn’t worth the risk to rush it. He can be patient. He can wait.

Apparently his nosy, interfering friends can’t, though. He feels completely justified to blame everything on them if it all goes wrong.

With his jaw tightened in defeat he asks, “Who else is coming?” from between his teeth in a way that most people would find terrifying and intimidating, but Wilson just smiles his king-of-the-world smile and starts listing off people.

“Me, Steve, you, Nat, Hill, and Darcy, of course. Wanda said she and Vision might stop by, but I doubt they’ll stay long. It’ll be fun, man. And even if nothing does happen tonight, at least you’ll have some new material for your spank bank.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at the modern phrase he has no trouble guessing the meaning behind. “Charming, Wilson, real charming.” He picks up his water bottle from a near-by bench and takes a long draw. “Fine. But I hate you.”

Wilson’s shit-eating grin never falters. “You love me. You can thank me later.”

 

* * *

 

The invitations that had gone out over the facility inter web had read “Sam Wilson cordially invites you to play cards and get naked at the newly established bi-monthly Strip Poker night. BYOB.”

Darcy had actually been the first one to respond with an affirmative. Her accompanying message had said, “Strip Poker? Fine. Mama needs a new pair of boots, but I guess I can settle for getting my eyes on all y'all’s muscly man parts.”

Sam had messaged back “Dream on, Lewis. I am a strip poker god. Prepare to be destroyed. Or at least, show off your girly goods. No Grannie panties allowed. I’m partial to red. ;)”

“I’m telling Natasha!” was her reply and Sam had submitted willingly for the time being.

When the night in question rolls around, though, Darcy isn’t the first to show up. She’s actually almost two hours late, showing up well after Wanda and Vision have gone and just as Bucky’s about to give up hope and head to bed.

“Well, it’s about time, Lewis!” Wilson calls, pulling her into the room where everyone’s gathered. He’s barefoot and shirtless, but he managed to hang on to his jeans the last hand because Maria decided Steve was getting off too easy and took his socks instead.

Everyone is still mostly dressed, they’ve been taking and messing around more than they’ve been playing, but when Darcy stumbles in, apologizing for her lateness because she got stuck with Jane on some data collecting mission, Bucky catches a shared look between Sam, Steve, and Nat and he knows that’s going to change.

Things are about to get serious.

Darcy sits down, still wearing her winter gear and Sam grumbles about cheaters never prospering and deals the next hand.

Darcy wins the first hand, and takes Bucky’s hoodie, but after that, she comes under constant  attack as Sam wins two hands, Nat four and Steve three.

Sam takes her gloves and hat, Nat takes her scarf, coat, shoes and socks, and Steve takes her bulky sweater.

She’s still covered from neck to ankles, though.

“I’m calling bullshit, Lewis!” Sam shouts once her sweater is off and it’s obvious she still has on at least 3 more layers.

Darcy just laughs at him and shoves some popcorn into her mouth. After she’s swallowed she just grins and says, “Hey, it’s not my fault you wanted to play strip poker on the same day that Jane was dragging me out to do late-January star gazing. It’s fucking cold outside, man. It’s not like I planned this. It’s totally a coincidence.” Her smile says otherwise, sharp with cunning and victorious with her thwarting of Wilson’s obvious plotting. “Barnes doesn’t mind, do ya, Barnsey?”

“Leave me out of it,” he grumbles. “I’m here against my will.”

Darcy frowns slightly at that and gives him an unreadable look.

“Well, I guess I’m not the only one being picked on. That’s some small comfort at least.” She gets her revenge by winning and taking Sam’s pants.

Sam counters by turning up the heat in his living room and then wins the next hand and takes her Violent Femmes t-shirt.

Bucky manages to win the next hand and takes Steve’s button-down, leaving his friend in his undershirt and khakis. He thinks Steve is probably the only person ever who turned up to strip poker night wearing business casual.

Sam gives him a dirty look and then asks him to help him with something in the kitchen. Once they’re alone he proceeds to give Bucky the third-degree along with a yellow bag that reads Don Pancho's Authentic Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips.

“What the hell, man? You aren’t doing yourself any favors by having Steve bear arms, dude. We’re all trying to help you out here, but you have to want to help yourself, too. And quite looking like someone just insulted your mamma. You want to see what the girl is hiding under her 18 layers of clothes or don’t you?”

“Jesus, Sam, do you hear yourself? I’m just trying to be a gentleman, okay? I’m not really comfortable with forcing women to undress for me,” Bucky growls and nearly bursts the bag of corn chips as he opens it with way too much force.

Wilson sighs and takes the bag from him, dumping the contents into a large mixing bowl and going to the fridge for salsa. “Okay, man, I get it. You gotta lighten up, though. This is only as serious as you take it. You’re making everyone else uncomfortable with your glaring. Darcy wants to be here, she knows what she was getting into. You didn’t force her into anything, and she’s so obviously asking everyone to pick on her by wearing so many goddamned clothes. It’s all part of the game, Barnes, so just play along okay? Or are you worried that you might actually have some fun and see some skin?”

Bucky tried to shake off the storm cloud hanging over his head, but it was easier said than done. “I’ll do my best,” he grumbled.

“You might start by trying to smile,” Sam said, then walked back out the main room, chips and salsa in hand.

It was easier to manage once Darcy started talking trash and flirting with him, putting him back in a good mood as they moved back into their normal rhythm. “For someone who has such a good poker face, you really suck at this game, Barnes,” She laughed and pointed at his shirt. “Hand it over.”

“Sure, Lewis, just keep your panties on,” he says and stripped off his shirt and tossed it into her face. “For now, anyway,” he adds and everyone laughs, some of the tension breaking.

An hour later, it was basically all out war between the two of them. Everyone else mostly just sitting back and trying to stay out of the crossfire. Bucky was down to his boxer briefs, and Darcy’s scarf, which he’d swiped from Natasha and wrapped around his neck.

Darcy loses her turtleneck and jeans, but laughs when she pulls them off to reveal white thermal underwear beneath them.

“Whew, thanks, Bucky, it was getting way to hot in her to be wearing that many clothes,” she says triumphant, despite her loss. “You’re a real life saver!”

“Anytime, Lewis,” he smirks right back and stuffs her jeans under his chair.

Natasha deals the next hand and Bucky grins at his three 10’s. He asks for one card, holding onto the queen of spades, hoping for either four of a kind or a full house, and is pleased to see the queen of diamonds.

Darcy gets three cards, but then hoots with joy when she sees what Nat passed her.

“Don’t even try to bluff, Darcy. There’s no way you’re gonna win this one. Might as well get started shimmying out of those long-johns now.”

She shakes her head and bites her lip. “The universe has spoken, Barnes. We’re all gonna get to see your dangly bits,”

He scoffs but can’t help laughing at her word choice. She’s adorable, and charming, and really fucking gorgeous, and she makes him smile like no one else has, probably ever.

It hits him that he’s so fucking gone over this girl, sitting there in her thermal underwear and grinning at him like a loon and threatening to expose him in front of all his friends, and he just can’t even bring himself to be upset about it.

He thinks he might be a little in love with Darcy Lewis.

“Full house,” he says, laying down his cards.

“What!?” Darcy yells, looking upset. “Well, geez, Barnes. That’s a pretty good hand.” Her smile leaks out and Bucky feels his stomach drop. “Too bad it’s not as good as my four 2’s!”

Bucky’s mouth drops.

No way did she just beat him with four 2’s.

He is just deciding that yes, he’s definitely in love with her, as she eyes his underwear, when Steve lays down four 6’s.

Bucky starts to laugh, thinking this means he’s safe when Steve asks him for the scarf.

“What?” Bucky asks and Darcy cackles at his best friend’s betrayal. He pouts a little as he pulls it off. “That was keeping my nipples warm,” he says, as he hands it over to his traitor ex-bestie.

“I’ll keep your nipples warm,” Darcy says under her breath and Nat and Maria both give her a high five as they watch pink leach across his nose and cheeks and up his neck.

“Promises, promises,” he muttered, looking embarrassed, but secretly pleased at her attention.

“Just be glad it was Steve and not me who won, Buck. I would have shown you no mercy.” Her leer is obviously suggestive.

He actually has to work to keep from making things even more embarrassing for himself, which he knows is her goal, and he refuses to give her the satisfaction, despite the liquid warmth bubbling in his gut.

Sam goes to deal the next hand, and Bucky notices Maria and Nat sharing some non-verbal communication. When Maria nudges Steve’s side with her elbow he jumps, looks at her strangely, then seems to snap out of it as he fakes a yawn and looks at his wristwatch.

“Wow, it’s getting really late. I should probably head to bed,” he says and the punk is just as lousy an actor now as he was in those propaganda films he did back in the war.

He’s about to call him on it when Hill and Romanov stand as well. “Yeah,” Maria says, a bit more convincingly, “We’ve got that early morning meeting with General Ross’s people. We should probably call it a night.”

“You guys should stay and play, though,” Nat says, giving Bucky a look he can’t help but is a little threatening.

“Oh, uh, I guess,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “If you insist, немного паук.”

She shoots him a look, but nods. “I insist.”

The three of them gather their clothes leave and Bucky feels the awkwardness creeping back in now that it’s just him and Darcy and Sam left.

Sam starts dealing the cards, acting oblivious to the weirdness when his phone starts to ring in his pants pocket under Darcy’s chair and he pulls it out and answers it quickly, though not before Bucky can catch the sight of red curls in the caller id photo.

“Wilson,” Sam says, and then glances between him and Darcy. “Sorry, guys, I gotta take this. Go ahead without me,” he prompts and then stands and walks back to his bedroom.

Bucky shifts in his seat and glances up at Darcy who looks more amused than anything.

“Wow,” she says, breaking the silence. “For a bunch of spies and secret agents, they all really suck at being even the tiniest bit subtle.”

Bucky chuckles and shakes his head. “Yes, they do,” he agreed and starts sorting his hand. “I’m sorry about… all this,” he adds sheepishly. “They mean well, but they’re really just a bunch of meddling old gossips with too much time on their hands.”

“Its fine,” she says and lays down two cards, pulling two off the top of the deck. “I’m not sorry. I certainly won’t complain about the view, anyway.” He glances up to see one corner of her lip tilt up in a way that makes his heart beat faster and she flicks her eyes up to him for a second before going back to her cards.

He shrugs. “Too bad I can’t say the same,” he says with a sigh. “I mean, those aren’t exactly the same thing my grandfather wore, but they’re pretty close…” What he’s implying is a totally lie, of course. She looks amazing in them, in anything, really. Or in nothing…

“Hey, don’t be hate'n on my johns, man. These babies have kept my ass toasty warm on many a winter’s night,” she huffs indignantly, but he can tell her words are just as much of an act as his were. Which is probably why the two of them are stuck in neutral. They’re too busy joking and teasing about everything to ever get serious with each other.

“Lucky them,” he says and lays down two cards, taking two more off the top.

He has three aces, a seven, and a jack.

“You interested in raising the stakes?” He asks, because as much as he loves their teasing and joking, he wants to get serious with this girl. Seriously serious.

“What did you have in mind?” Darcy asks, and he’s listening close enough to catch the little hitch in her voice.

“Dinner?” he asks, “Just the two of us. Somewhere nice. My treat.”

His heart is really pounding now, as she looks up at him and shoots him a Mona Lisa smile if he ever saw one.

“Sure,” she says then, “But what do you want if you win?”

It throws him off for a second, because that is what he wants, more than anything, but what she’s implying makes his chest swell and his head swim. He considers saying dinner could be her treat if he wins, but he knows if he gets the chance to take her out, he’s going to want to do it right, and that means treating the lady.

“If I win, then I get to kiss you good night after our first date.”

The smile that slides up her face slowly after his words sink in is equal parts pleasant surprise and lusty glee.

“You’re on,” she says with a nod and he feels a little like singing.

Jackpot.


	5. Day 5: catching a cold/frostbite/sickness

Bucky shouldn’t be shocked when things take a sudden turn for the worst. With the life he’s lived, he never imagined his life would be normal and happy enough for him to even become complacent enough to let his guard down, but it has and he does.

The ironic thing is, it isn’t even Hydra or AIM or something from his past that catches up with him that ruins the end of a perfectly good first date. It’s a combination of inclement weather conditions and wildlife and regular old human error.

He and Darcy are on their way back from dinner and dancing in town. It’s fairly late, and very dark, and he has the heater in the car running full blast because the evening is cold and cloudless and there was a brisk wind picking up when they left the bar, Darcy on his arm, smiling and stumbling slightly from her high heels and that third beer.

The radio is going in and out because the signal gets a little weak out here in the middle of nowhere upstate New York, but Darcy is still trying to sing a long, stumbling over the lyrics when the music cuts out and laughing at herself and trying to cover up her goof with made up words that make no sense, but make him smile easy and real, just like she always does.

She’s doing this halted, jerking shimmy motion in her seat that he realizes is her trying to dance within the confines of her seat-belt and he is startled into laughter. Darcy just turns and grins at him and he smiles right back, knowing that he has a kiss waiting for him when they get back to the base and his cheeks get warm and his stomach feels like he ate live Lepidoptera instead of the fancy Italian food they had at the most expensive restaurant in town. It’s a 25 minute drive under optimal driving conditions, and the roads are bad tonight because of the snow they got that morning before the clouds blew away and the temperature dropped, but he remembers listening to his date make jokes about bread-sticks and dance in her heels and skirt and he thinks it’s more than worth the trip.

Bucky’s thinking about his upcoming kiss and watching Darcy from the corner of his eye and maybe going 10 miles an hour faster than he should be, because he’s impatient to get back, and besides, he’s an excellent driver when they reach the S curve.

The first turn is fine, he slowly marginally to navigate the car around the bend safely, but as the come around the second curve, he catches a flash of movement across the road as the headlights move along the pavement.

There is a deer in the road. He doesn’t slam on the breaks, only decelerates as slowly as he thinks is safe and tries to avoid the large antlered beast, but the wheels catch on some ice and he loses control anyway.

He thinks he has time to shout her name and put his arm out across her body as they start to spin.

He thinks he hears her scream, but that might have just been the sound of metal ripping through metal and glass and plastic succumbing to force and speed and impact.

They do miss the deer, but hit the guard rail and punch right through. The car’s momentum and steep incline on the other side mean the vehicle flips and they end up on the roof in the creek that runs at the bottom of the embankment.

The water isn’t deep, but it doesn’t need to be. The windshield is broken and the passenger side door is buckled enough to let the water push in over the roof of the care and into their faces. Bucky has fast enough reflexes to hold his breath as he uses his left arm to rip his seat-belt out, but he can hear Darcy gasping and coughing as he rights himself, kneeling in the water and reaching for her buckle.

When he finally gets it released, he tries to catch her, to keep her out of the water, but it’s a futile effort. It’s started pooling against the back windows and is growing deeper around them.

It’s so cold, so bitterly, sharply cold that it feels like knives against his exposed skin, stabbing and slicing, though it leaves no outward sign of injury. He can’t help that if it hurts him so much, the Winter Soldier, who was conditioned to resist pain and frozen repeatedly over the better part of a decade, that it must be so much worse for her. Darcy is soft and weak and undisciplined in all the ways that might help her withstand this pain. And her clothes…

Bucky forces himself not to think about anything except getting her out of the car, out of the water, and out of the cold.

He pulls her out though his door, which he’d kicked open, his superior strength and adrenaline aiding him, and gets her onto the bank, out of the water, where she coughs and shivers and works the water from her lungs, but she’s already shaking violently and her hair and clothes are soaked through.

“Are you okay?” He asks, feeling along her arms and legs for injury. It’s too fucking dark to see clearly enough, and he’s worried she might not be able to feel anything through the bite of the icy temperatures.

She nods, but her face is tight with pain.

“Darcy!” He barks, “I need to know if you’re hurt!”

She just stares at him blankly for a moment and he knows she’s going into shock. All her laughter and smiles are gone and her pale skin looks deathly instead of lovely in the dark. After a second, Darcy shakes her head and bites her lip trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

“No, I-I’m j-j-just c-c-old,” she stutters out and he catches a dark smear on the edge of her forehead, under her hair. He pushes her hair back to notice a small cut. He checks her quickly, but can’t see anything else that he needs to worry about for the immediate future. She’s probably bruised and will be sore from the impact and her seat belt, but he can worry about that later.

Now… now he has to find help and get them shelter. He has to get them warm.

He pulls his cell out of his pocket, but it’s broken near in half from the being between his thigh and the buckle of his seat belt. He can’t feel the bruises forming on his own body either, but he knows they’re probably there.

“Where’s your phone, Darcy?” he demands, holding her shoulders and looking her right in the face. Her eyes are getting that glassy look that comes with shock and he knows it won’t be long before she will be totally out of it.

“Pur- purse. Fffloor,” she gets out and he scrambles back into the open door to search.

He finds her purse in the back, on the ceiling under a foot and half of water. He drags it back to the bank and empties it out next to her. He hopes maybe the leather kept out enough of the water to protect the phone, but when the block of plastic and glass tumbles out into the muddy slush on the bank of the stream, he knows he isn’t going to be that lucky.

Her phone is soaked through and won’t turn on.

“Come on,” he murmurs and pulls her into his arms. Her whole body is a quivering block of ice at this point, and he’s not really much better, though he’s at least fully covered and still has both his shoes. It looks like one of her heels come off at some point, and he doesn’t remember seeing it when he went in for the purse.

She’s wearing tights under her skirt, but he doesn’t think they count for much against the freezing wind that’s pushing against their wet clothes.

He gets her back up to the road and holds her close, trying to share some body warmth, but there isn’t much left between the two of them. The deer is gone, and the night is totally silent around them and there is only starlight to see by. He thinks back, and knows it’s been a while since they saw another vehicle.

This isn’t a busy road, especially this late at night.

What this all means, is that Bucky has a choice.

He runs the numbers in his head. It’s just over 20 miles between town and the facility, and they’d been driving for approximately 17 minutes, but he’d been averaging about 45 miles an hour…

Best guess, they’re 8 or 9 miles from base by road. He might be able to cut that down to 6 if he cuts through the fields and trees in a straight line. He could run 6 miles in about 20 minutes under ideal conditions, but he has to carry Darcy and there’s most of two feet of snow covering the open areas. He’s looking at at least a 45 minutes, probably like more like an hour that way.

They can wait here, hoping that the car was equipped with some kind of accident alert that will tell them back home that they need help, and maybe if they were driving one of the motor pool vehicles that would be a decent bet, but Darcy had borrowed Jane’s car, and he wasn’t sure he was willing to risk Darcy’s life on those odds.

He could follow the road. He’d be able to move faster, but if his math is off and it’s more than 9 miles…

He starts walking along the road. At least this way they have a chance of being picked up if any vehicles do come their way.

Bucky tries to run, but the jarring motion has Darcy gasping in pain, so he slows to a more even pace, holding her tight to keep the jostling to a minimum.

His right hand and feet and face are burning from the cold, sharp and deep, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before everything starts to go numb. That will be both better and worse, he knows.

His girl is silent against him, her face turned into his neck. She’s still shaking, which is a good sign, but he can feel her clothing harden and turn brittle as the water starts to freeze. He does his best to shelter her from the brunt of the wind chill, but it feels like persistent, dagger like tendrils of air manage to find every nook and cranny of space between them and slip into even the smallest of spaces.

His feet go numb first, but he forces himself to keep moving. He has to slow even further to keep from stumbling, and he grits his teeth, frustrated with the extended delay, as he pushes on.

He keeps his eyes up and on the lookout for lights either in the distance or moving towards them along the road. He doubts there are many homes out this way, though. There’s a reason this was the best place to set up shop for a top secret para-military outfit like the Avengers.

He walks on in the dark.

His hand goes numb as well, and he has to keep looking down to double check that he’s still got Darcy pressed against him. He finds himself grateful for his left arm and its increased strength and immunity to the elements. It’s not the first time he’s felt glad of the thing, but it’s probably the first time he’s felt it because it might help him save someone instead of hurting or destroying.

It has been at least a half hour, and Darcy has stopped shivering. She’s still against him and he feels his panic building even through the numb dislocation of his higher mental function that has helped him march on, despite the cold and pain and weariness that has seeped into his very bones.

He cannot stop. If he stops she’ll die.

He walks on.

When he finally reaches the road that turns off to the facility he starts counting steps. He knows exactly how far they can go before the motion sensors pick them up, how far he has to walk before they’ll be visible on the cameras.

He’s walking and counting when he hears the rattle of the front gate and the sound of approaching engines.

When the SUV pulls to a stop in front of them and the doors fly open to reveal Sam and Steve, Bucky thinks he might cry for the first time in 75 years, except he can’t because his face is totally frozen.

“What happened?” Steve demands as he reaches for them and guides them back to the vehicle.

“Deer. Wreck.” Bucky can’t make himself say more than that, and is alarmed to find his own shivering has stopped as well. He’s so tired, but he wants to scream at them to help Darcy, to save her, but he can just barely make his feet move one in front of the other as they approach the car.

When they get there, Sam tries to take Darcy from his arms, but their clothes have frozen together and the skin of her cheek is stuck to the shoulder of his jacket, so they help him climb in without tearing her free and Sam climbs in on the other side as Steve directs the driver to get them to medical Now!

Sam puts his fingers against one of her wrists and sighs in relief as he feels a pulse, slow and shallow, but steady.

“She’s alive,” he tells Bucky, his warm eyes locking onto him. “We’ll get you guys warmed up and she’ll be fine.”

“How long have you been walking, Buck?” Steve asks as he turns in his seat to press his hands against Bucky’s flesh and blood under Darcy’s knees and his friend’s skin is so hot it burns against his.

“Don’t know,” he whispers, trying to measure the time in his head, but it’s all a foggy swatch of cold and pain and determination to keep moving in his mind that he can’t tell. “Too long. 8 or 9 miles.”

“Jesus, Bucky!” Steve curses, and wraps his fingers around his wrist to squeeze his screaming limb. “Why didn’t you just hit Darcy’s panic button?”

He can only frown. “Her phone was dead,” he insists.

Bucky sees Sam turn and shoot Steve a scowl and shake his head, his face enough to tell the captain how unhelpful he’s being.

They pull up to the special entrance for the medical center, and someone must have called ahead because there are nurses and at least one doctor standing at the door with equipment and a gurney, ready for them.

It takes some careful maneuvering to get them on the wheel stretcher because Bucky can’t, and won’t, let go of the girl in his arms until they’re inside and getting warm.

The doctor is calling out orders as they pull into one of the treatment rooms, and everything becomes a flurry of movement and action as they work at helping the frozen couple.

They end up cutting away his jacket, leaving a jagged strip of it stuck to her face as they managed to get her away, finally.

He thinks he remembers telling them to be careful with her hair, that they shouldn’t cut her hair, because he knows how much Darcy loves her long, dark curls.

He sort of remembers watching them as they lay her In a portable tub that someone brings in and start pouring lukewarm water over her, clothes and all, but then they take him away to his own room and his own tub and he has to fight his overwhelming need to see her, to know she’s okay, but Steve is there telling him not to fight, to let staff help them, and he gives in and sinks into the blank, mind numbing pain as they warm his body and bring him back to life with fire in his veins and a million stinging needles in his skin and then there is blessed nothingness as they put him under.

Bucky gets off easy with a case of moderate hypothermia that his enhanced physique has pretty much shrugged off by the next afternoon.

Darcy isn’t so lucky.

She has first degree frostbite on her face and her hypothermia is rather more serious. It leaves her laid up in the medical center for almost a week as she heals and then as she recovers from a mild case of pneumonia that adds itself to her list of complications.

Bucky goes to visit her a couple of times, but her weak, diminished state hurt him far more than the cold, and the guilt makes it hard for him to look her in the eyes, though she tells him repeatedly that it isn’t his fault, that he saved her and she’s so grateful.

Her words might mean something if he hadn’t found out about the panic button on her bracelet. The water proof, fire resistant, shock proof one that she’d been too out of it to remember, the one that he hadn’t even known about, the one that could have had help to them within 10 minutes or less.

And of course, there’s the whole issue with him remembering what a horrible, dangerous place the world is, and how fragile and impermanent life is, and how much it hurts to think about what it would feel like to lose this bright, new, beautiful person that has somehow become crucial to him.

It’s all too much. He was stupid to forget, and even more stupid to think he was ready to deal with anything more serious than keeping himself safe and surviving day after day.

So he visits her a couple of times, but he doesn’t really look her in the face, and when she tells him she hopes their second date will end better than their first, he shrugs and doesn’t take the bait.

He isn’t there when they release her from medical, and he stops seeking her out in the common areas and visiting her in the labs.

He still sees her. It’s not so large a place that they won’t ever run into each other, and they do both live and work at the compound, but he doesn’t let himself be swayed by her smiles or pulled in by her flirting and teasing.

After a while, those stop. She has no more smiles or jokes or enticing innuendos for him. Bucky doesn’t let himself think about how much that hurts or how much he hates it, because it’s what he wants, right? It’s for the best.

He doesn’t let himself think about that kiss that he never got, and never will.

He doesn’t do much but exist and train and fight and that’s okay. That’s familiar.

He’ll be fine.

Right?


	6. Day 6: winter night sky/stars/constellations/auroras

The first time Darcy lays actual eyes on James “Bucky” Barnes, she’s out on the roof of the Avenger’s facility with Jane, looking at the stars and talking about Jane’s newest project and drinking shots of Jack Daniels. Jack helps Jane brainstorm and sitting on roof tops while they do it is a tradition passed down from their first days in New Mexico together. They even brought a couple of cheap, plastic lawn chairs with them.

He comes bursting out of the door like the hounds of hell are on his heels, skids to a halt on the concrete and gravel of the rooftop and looks around like he’s contemplating jumping right over the edge.

Jane is sitting in stunned silence at the bizarre interruption, so Darcy stands quietly and takes a step towards him.

“Darcy!” Jane squeaks and reaches for her hand, but she shakes her friend off.

She recognizes Barnes, as well as the expression he’s wearing. She has read his file, (well, hacked into his file), so she has a good idea what’s going on with him, and she thinks she might be able to help.

She knows if he does jump, it will be to escape, because that distance wouldn’t even slow him down, and she’s about 80% sure he won’t straight up attack her. (The memo Cap had sent out had assured everyone that he was no longer subject to Hydra control and had been successfully broken their conditioning.)  She puts on her ‘just trying to help’ face, just in case.

“Hey, fella!” she calls when she’s still got 12 or 15 feet between them, an immediately hides a wince. Fella? Who says that anymore? Although, given his history, maybe that’s more familiar for him. “You doing okay? You know where you are, right? You know that you’re safe here?”

He tenses up and whips his head around to stare at her from between long, greasy locks, but he doesn’t move towards her, for which she’s grateful. That might freak her out, and she doesn’t have her Taser on her. She can see his chest heaving like a bellows as he works to draw air in and force it out, but she can’t hear him breathing. It’s the sort of incongruous kind of thing that makes her skin break out in goose-flesh.

“My name is Darcy. I work with Dr. Foster and Thor and the Avengers. I know Steve Rogers. He’s your friend, right?” she asks, and hopes to god that he’s in the frame of mind where the good captain is his friend. He narrows his eyes at her, but doesn’t move or say anything.

“Looks like you’re having one hell of a panic attack. Walls closing in on you? Can’t get enough air? That kind of thing?” she asks and takes another two steps towards him. He doesn’t flinch away so she takes another one. Once they’re standing 5 feet apart she stops and puts a hand out for him. “Just breath, guy. You’re okay. Can I get you anything? Do you need me to find Steve?”

Something flashes in his eyes and he turns his body to face her square on, but his shoulders are easing back and his spine is straightening, so she’s not really afraid that he’s getting ready to attack.

“I’ve seen you. You were catching snowflakes.” His words are clipped, his voice soft, but there’s a hint of curiosity, or interest there that she blushes and chuckles nervously.

“You saw that, huh? Were you checkin’ me out, Sargent Barnes?” she says with a wink.

“Hard not to, sweetheart,” he says, relaxing more and letting his face fall into a more relaxed expression, still awkward, but definitely less distressed. He gives her a deliberate once over and she does a little 'southern belle fanning herself’ bit and they fall into a somewhat stilted, but mostly easy conversation, his panic attack forgotten.

That was June.

Now it’s late February, and this time its Bucky who’s sitting on the roof when Darcy comes stumbling out onto the roof. She’s got her winter gear on and her face is pulled into a tight frown.

It’s not that she was looking for him, she wasn’t, but now that she’s here, and he’s here, she decides it’s time they had a little chat. She turns towards him and stalks over quickly.

He looks like he’s going to stand, looks like he needs to flee, just like he had that first day, but she just points a finger at him and shakes her head.

“No way, Barnes. Don’t you dare move,” she spits and walks around to the other law chair, tips it over and bangs it to get the snow off and then sets it down and plops into it, shivering when the cold of the plastic reaches her even through her abundant layers. She waits, wanting to see if he is going to obey. He’s still tense from head to toe, but he slides back on his chair and puts his hands on the armrests.

She figures that’s as good a sign as she’s going to get that he’s ready to listen to her.

“So,” she starts off, trying to take the low-simmering anger she’s felt for the last couple weeks and shove it aside for now. “Are things better for you this way? Are you happier or…whatever?”

Bucky looks at her, his face carefully blank and only shrugs.

“'Cause I gotta tell ya, Barnes, I feel like things are definitely worse than they were before. I thought, at the very least, that we were friends. Maybe even…something more, you know, before the accident, but I thought, I hoped that even if you don’t want… Even if you don’t want more from me, I always thought we’d at least be friends.” These things are hard for her to say. She doesn’t do well with actual serious emotion. She mostly just wants to shake him and ask him what his goddamned problem is, though she thinks she might have a clue. She also wants to climb in his lap and hug him until his perpetual scowl goes away.

He sighs and tips his head back, looking up at the clear night sky and the stars above them. There are a few fluffy clouds reflecting the lights from the compound, but it’s clear enough that she can make out a few of the more obvious constellations. His sigh left a puff of breath visible in the air before him and she feels the cold again, bitter and hard and she hates it, but she had needed the air and she needs to have this talk with him so she does her best to ignore it.

Darcy knows how miserable she’s been since Bucky shut himself off from her, and she’s heard enough from Steve and Sam and Nat to know he isn’t fairing much better. She knows he can be a real stubborn ass though, and figures she’s in for a fight.

She isn’t wrong.

“I need to focus on my training,” he says finally, and Darcy feels her rage spike again.

“Oh, really? And how’s that working out for you, Barnes? You rid yourself of all distractions and now you can focus? Bullshit. Nat told me you dislocated her shoulder during your sparing session last week. So that tells me either you’re either lying out your ass, or that you meant to hurt Natasha. So which is it, huh?” She manages not to yell, to keep her voice at a decent volume though she’s pretty sure her inflection carried enough venom to get her point across anyway.

“I didn’t…” He tries, then growls in frustration and puts his face in his hands. “She said something that pissed me off and I lost control for a split second, Darcy. If anything, that proves my point!”

“And what point is that?” She asks, knowing what he’s going to say, but curious if he’ll actually be able to say it out loud.

“My point is that I’m not safe. I’m dangerous and you’ll do better if you stay as far away from me as possible.”

She scoffs at that. “You think I don’t know that you’re dangerous? Hell, everyone that I know is dangerous in some way. I’m dangerous! And if you think I’m stupid enough to think I am take you physically, or that I would even want to try… I’m pretty sure I’m smart enough to stay at least 20 feet way from you when you’re in the ring.”

He just rolls his eyes and looks at something off to his left.

She sighs and shakes her head. “Okay, look, I know that what happened, I know that scared you. I know that there was a lot to deal with and I figured you needed some time, needed to take a step back to sort things out, which is fine, I get that. I just hoped that, eventually, you would figure things out and we could try to get back to where we were, or…I don’t know. But if you’re really telling me that you don’t want me in your life… If you’re saying I make things too hard for you, then… That’s your choice to make, and I will respect that, but you have to tell me, Barnes. I don’t deserve to be left hanging. I’m not sure where we stand. I care about you, but if you don’t want me, then… All you have to do is say so.”

He doesn’t look at her, and she can see his jaw tense and relax and tense again. She’s sort of surprised she can’t hear his teeth grinding.

When he doesn’t answer, she carries on.

“Jane just told me she wants to take an expedition up to the Arctic Circle. She wants to get some data readings on the aurora borealis and the Earth’s magnetic something or other. She says now is the time because they’re predicting a lot of solar activity in the next couple months, and apparently March and April are peak seasons for the lights.” Darcy knows Jane is really excited about the trip. She also knows that she isn’t as excited. “I have just about had enough cold and snow, and I really want to just call S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark and have them build us a couple quick and easy drones to get the data we need, but I was thinking if this thing between us is really done, if there’s no reason for me to hang around, that maybe it would be a good excuse to get some distance between us.”

Bucky does look at her then, his head snapping around as his eyes fix on her, burning hot and angry, much like he had that first day. “So what? You’re giving me some kind of ultimatum? Stop ignoring you or you’re leaving? Heading off to some frozen no-man’s-land to get yourself hurt, or worse? Is this some kind of punishment for me not smiling and laughing and pretending everything is fine when it’s not?”

Darcy winces at the fury and pain she sees in his face and suddenly feels almost too tired to continue, still, she has to find the strength somewhere

“No, it’s not like that, Bucky. It’s not a punishment or a threat. I’m just telling you that you have a choice to make. It’s your choice and only you can make it. I have to stand by whatever you decide. But you have to understand, Buck… If you decide you’re done with me, that I’m not worth the hassle and you don’t want me in your life, then I have a choice to make, too.”

Darcy swallow’s hard and closes her eyes for a second. She knows she’s going to cry, she doesn’t think she can stop it now that the heat has started building behind her eyes and her throat is getting tight, but she needs to be able to say this without sounding like a whiny baby.

Once she’s steady enough to continue she opens her eyes again, starring out across the compound at the dark horizon. “Every time I see you I want…things. I want to make you smile and laugh, I want to hug you and make sure you know you’re safe and that people care about you, I want…well, I want a lot of things. I can’t really help it. I just want you to be happy. But if you can’t be near me, if there’s nothing but disappointment and frustration for me, if being around me just makes you angry or sad or…whatever, then I think it’s better if I go.

"I don’t want to sit around and pine after something that’s never going to happen, and I don’t want to make things worse for you, either. If I go, maybe we can put some distance on this. You can do what you need to do without me around to distract you and I can figure out how to… not… want. That isn’t really what I want, but you have your choice to make and I have mine. You’ll have to respect my choice, just like I have to respect yours. That’s what it means to be a grown up and deal with other people in a mature and adult like manner. Or so they tell me,” she adds with a sad smile, knowing the wet tracks on her face are going to start stinging with cold soon and wanting this conversation to be over, one way or another.

She has tried to be understanding of Bucky and his issues, but her heart breaks a little more each time she sees him leave the room she’s just entered, or hears another story from his friends about how he did laps on the track for 3 hours, or bloodied his knuckles beating the shit out of another dozen heavy bags.

She only wants to help him, has only ever wanted to help him, but it seems like she’s only made things worse.

Fortunately, it looks like she’s managed to diffuse his anger, at least, and she watches him as he searches her face for something. She sees his eyes repeatedly glance at her cheek where she knows she still carries a light mark from her frostbite. It’s healing, probably won’t scar, but it’s still visible enough that she knows he can’t help but see it.

He stands after a very long and strained few minutes.

“I can’t give you what you want,” he says simply, and then turns and walks away.

She hears the door open and then close a moment later, and she lets her face fall into her arms, which she folds across her knees in an attempt to make herself as small as possible.

Darcy spends a few minutes really crying. She doesn’t fight the tears or the loud noises she makes as she sobs. She just lets herself break down for a while. It’s not something she allows herself very often, but she knows she needs it now.

She feels the pain of her heartache sharper than any cold, but when her tears recede, she feels a little better. Not much, there’s still a sharp prick of grief anytime her thoughts stray to those every changing blue eyes, or think of the way his upper lip would curl up with a smirk whenever he would flirt with her, or of the way her stomach would get warm and fluttery when he was around, but there a refreshing, stringent clarity to her hurt now.

She feels the cold again, creeping in around the edges of her thoughts, and ever present chilly weight, and goes to find Jane and tell her she’ll get everything set up.

They’re going to go camping in the Canadian Arctic during the winter, and she has hope, while she’s there, that she can figure out how to feel warm again. Somehow.


	7. Day 7  hibernation/snowed-in/blizzards

Dr. Foster’s Arctic Expedition is only gone 10 days when an alert comes into the Avenger’s HQ that there’s a massive storm system building and headed straight for them. There’s a quick meeting about what they want to do, which Bucky attends, but is utterly silent during. He’d heard the words blizzard and sub-zero temperatures and knew anything he might add would be emotionally compromised by the panic he can feel building behind his eyes and beneath his sternum.

In the end, it’s Dr. Foster’s call.

He always knew the doc was a smart lady, and when she announces that she wants to evacuate the personnel for the duration of the storm, he knows he was right about her. Despite the fact that their pre-fab structures, built and transported by Stark Industries themselves, are more than up to withstanding the predicted weather, she decides her data isn’t worth risking human lives. It’ll set them back a week, but they should still be able to return after the blizzard has passed and get enough readings to make it worth all the effort and expense.

“I’ll have Barton and Vision headed your way in the next 15 minutes, Dr. Foster. They’ll get the jet to your location and assist with getting your people out safe,” Steve announces as the meeting comes to a close.

“Thank you, Captain. We appreciate it. I guess we’ll be seeing you soon,” the petite woman adds, giving them a little wave before disconnecting the video call.

“I’m going, too,” Bucky tells his friend as everyone moves to leave.

Steve looks up at him sharply and gives him a steady, evaluating look.

“You sure? I’m think Barton and Vision can handle it,” he says confidently.

“I’m sure they can. I’m still going,” Bucky declares and crosses his arms over his chest, daring Steve to argue with him.

There’s a knowing twinkle in the punk’s eyes as he nods once and waves his arm towards the exit. “I suppose having more hands on deck can’t hurt,” he agrees. “Alright, Buck, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Bucky growls and walks past his friend to head for the hanger. He makes a quick stop in the locker room to grab his cold weather gear and then climbs onto the quinjet just as Barton is cycling up the engines.

“Barnes,” Barton nods in greeting. There’s a crinkling at the corner of his eyes that conveys a sense of imminent amusement, but he doesn’t say anything else, so Bucky decides to ignore him and takes a seat in the back, away from the archer and the android, who had settled into the co-pilot’s seat.

It takes them over 3 hours to reach the expedition sight, and by the time they arrive the weather conditions have deteriorated even further than predicted. Barton has trouble landing, and when he doesn’t finally get them on the ground he informs everyone they have 10 minutes before the jet has to take off. Any longer than that and there’s a good chance they’ll all be stuck there till things blow over.

Barton says he has to stay with the jet and keep the engines running, otherwise the amount of blowing snow and ice may clog them and keep them from restarting. Vision greets Dr. Foster as soon as they exit. She’s got a fur-lined parka and goggles on and she’s waving a small group of science types, arms full of binders and delicate equipment towards the aircraft.

“I’m so glad you guys made it in time!” She yells over the roaring wind. The air is filled with swirling, slicing flakes that sting against Bucky’s nose and chin. “We decided to leave most of the equipment behind, but there are a few things, smaller things I’m worried might be damaged so-”

“It’s fine,” Bucky shouts, cutting her off. He’s been looking around and none of the people pushing up the ramp have the bright blue eyes or lush lips he’s looking for. “Get what you can carry and climb aboard. We don’t have much time.” He swallows when a bundled figure, the last that he can see, comes stumbling out of a nearby structure and comes jogging towards them, leaning against the pressing force of the wind.

Only when that last person arrives, looking up at him with a grateful smile, it isn’t Darcy.

Bucky runs his eyes over the surrounding area again. There are several small structures, some of them linked by tunnels of metal and plastic, insulated by a heavy layer of thermostatic material that looks like off-white canvas, but that he knows can withstand the coldest recorded temperatures on the planet. Stark had been bragging about the stuff when he’d showed up to see Foster and her crew off.

He’d overheard the whole thing from his carefully concealed place in the overhead support beams.

Stark really had gone all out to see these people had the best in winter survival gear.

Still, it didn’t help him feel any better when the person he was worried most about was nowhere to be found.

“Dr. Foster! Where’s Lewis?” He demands, telling himself his voice was raised only because it needed to be heard above the sound of the storm and the jet engines, not because his whole body was strung tight with dread and fear.

The woman glances around then, eyes going wide behind the tinted class of her goggles. “She was going to go over to the communications building, but she should have been back by now.”

“Get on board, I’ll go find her!” He calls as he starts towards the furthest distant structure. He doesn’t have to ask her which one is communications. He figures the one with the big satellite dish and radio antenna next to it are a good bet.

When he pushes inside, closing the door behind him with some difficulty, and only after a munch of snow has blown in around his feet, Bucky turns to spot his target sitting behind a desk on the far side of the room, cursing and glaring at a computer monitor.

“Come on and sync you stupid piece of shit,” she muttered and taps on a few keys. “Goddammit!” She thunders and slams one hand down on the desk.

“Time to go, Lewis,” he insists, moving towards her.

Her eyes flick up to him for an second before moving back to the screen in front of her and other wise ignoring him.

He picks her coat up off a chair and walks over to hand it to her. “Ride’s leaving, we have to move now.”

She shakes her head. “The fucking satellite connection is running slower than a sloth on Valium. I think its cause the dish outside is frozen and can’t get a direct link. I’m going to have to take a wrench to it, or maybe a blow torch. You wouldn’t happen to have a blow torch on you, would ya, Barnes?”

“Forget it, Lewis, there’s no time. This blizzard is reaching critical mass sooner than expected and Barton has threatened to leave us behind if we aren’t on board in the next 3 minutes.”

Darcy snorts and grabs her coat from him, pulling it on and zipping it up quickly, but not taking her eyes off her work. “I have to at least get the data backup started. It’s almost there. Just two more minutes…”

Bucky fights back a growl. “You don’t have two minutes. Foster will understand. You did your best, but the weather’s a bitch. You can’t help it if Stark’s crap equipment isn’t up to snuff. Let’s go.”

She finally deigns to look up at him. “What are you even doing here? Jane said Cap was sending Clint and Vision. You weren’t on the roster for this little extraction.”

She’s stalling. He knows she’s stalling.

Bucky grits his teeth and tries not to scream at her to get her ass moving, or sling her over his shoulder like a Neanderthal. “Last minute addition,” he whispers. “Now, are you going to come with me now, or am I going to have to drag you out of here, cause I think we’d both prefer it if I didn’t have to do that.”

She narrows her eyes at him, and he stares right back at her, letting her read his unwavering determination on his face.

“Fine. Fine. I really don’t want to be stuck here in this godforsaken place anyway,” she relents, grudgingly as she pulls gloves and a hat out of her coat pockets and pulls them on.

He marches behind her, following her to the door and out into the white sheet of the world outside. He does his best to get the door closed tight behind him again, and then turns to find the snow is blowing so thick around him that he’s lost sight of her.

“Darcy!” He screams, and starts waking towards where the jet is, following the new prints in the snow. It was mid-calf when they landed. It’s over his knee now.

Two dozen steps later he finds her leaning against the side of one of the other buildings huddled there for shelter against the worst of the wind as she looks for him. Her face bursts with relief as he stumbles up to her and grabs onto one of her arms.

“Let’s go!” He shouts, but the howling wind tears his words away.

“Can’t!” She screams back. “It’s too much!”

Bucky can see her face squished up against the wind and snow and ice, and he can feel her trembling under his hand.

It’s only been about a month since the accident. He knows he is barely hanging on to the fear he feels with every icy stab of cold, every memory of that bone deep pain and it’s something he’s lived with much longer than she has. He can only imagine how terrified she must be.

He hears a voice in his ear. His com is static filled and inaudible, but he recognizes Barton’s voice.

Bucky pulls Darcy to him and half drags, half carries her to the closest door he can see. He gets it open and pushes her inside, before following her and locking the door tight behind him.

“Barton!” He calls, activating his com. “I’ve got Lewis. We’re safe inside for now, but we can’t get to you. You get Dr. Foster and the rest out of here.”

There’s a crackle and then he hears, “Copy th…Bar…stay wa…d luck!”

Darcy is panting, her hand over her chest as she tries to get her bearings. She’s leaning against a long table and gripping a folding chair with her other hand.

“Lewis, you okay?” Bucky asked, stepping around to put him in her direct line of sight. “Hey, its fine, you’re fine.” He reaches out to rub his hands over her arms, but she flinches back, so he just lowers his hands and waits for her to get it together.

It doesn’t take long. After only a second she’s glaring up at him and snarling, “Please tell me you didn’t just tell our only ride out of here to ditch us.”

He glances away and puts on his own scowl. He’s not exactly pleased about it either.

“If they don’t take off now, they may be stuck here with us. Hell, it might already be too late. You saw how bad it is out there. You’re the one who said it was too much, and you were right,” he reminded her, resisting the urge to say it was her own fault for taking too long, for being her in the first place.

“I know I was right. It’s super shitty outside. That’s why I want to get on the jet and leave!” Her voice is strained with the edge of hysteria and Bucky reminds himself that she isn’t thinking rationally. She is reacting emotionally. It’s what normal people do.

“We’re better off taking shelter here than stumbling around out there looking for the jet. The buildings should hold. We’ll be fine,” he assures her and starts looking around. They seem to be in the dinning area and he can see a small food preparation area in one corner of the space. “We’ve got heat, and power, and food. We just have to wait this out.”

Darcy nods and stands up straight, trying to shake off her fear. “Okay, okay, yeah, we’ll be fine. "We should get everything we need in as small a space as possible and seal everything off. That will conserve power if we can turn the heating down in the rest of the hab.”

“Good thinking,” he praises and helps her get to work. He knew she was strong, but she amazes him with her ability to think under pressure. He can’t help but admire her, feel proud of her. Even though she keeps complaining about how much it sucks and how much she fucking hates the fucking winter, she keeps moving, keeps working, and keeps thinking of all the things that will help them get through this stressful situation.

She instructs him to pull two of the cots from the barracks, attached to the mess by one of those connecting tunnels, He gets the cots as well as a bunch of sleeping bags and bedding and even manages to find the foot locker with Darcy’s extra clothes and some things from a bag marked F. Dunn that he thinks might fit him.

He didn’t exactly pack for an extended stay, and he’s glad the science types were more worried about their lab equipment than their personal belongings.

She’s managed to find an extra portable generator and some radio equipment that she sets up on the table and fiddles with while he gets all the other areas sealed off and shut down, with the exemption of the bathroom facilities that are adjacent to the mess hall.

He returns the last time to find her speaking into a microphone, assuring Dr. Foster that they’re safe in the hab and that they’ll see them after the storm passes.

“Oh, and tell Captain Mother Hen that I’ll make sure his friend comes back in mostly one piece. Tell him to try and not worry his pretty little head about Barnes. I’ll keep him safe,” she smirks and then shoots him a wink.

He snorts and shakes his head as he goes to check the thermostat one more time, but he’s secretly relieved that she’s feeling more herself.

He’s trying not to consider what it’s going to be like, trapped her with the woman he…with Darcy for the foreseeable future. The forecast had predicted the blizzard would last about 4 days. Of course, the forecast also said they would have an extra hour to get everyone out before things got too bad for the jet, so it was possible it was wrong about the duration as well.

“Okay, Darce, I’ll tell him,” Foster replies. “Just stay safe and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Sure, Janie, you just try not to get into too much trouble without me, okay?” Darcy says back, find smile on her face.

“Same goes,” Jane says.

Then Barton steps over her. “That’s right, Lewis. You behave yourself with Barnes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

She rolls her eyes. “No can do, Barton. Jane told me to stay safe and act sensibly, which are about the only things I haven’t seen you try yet.”

“Funny, Lewis. Glad to see your sense of humor hasn’t frozen solid,” Barton teases.

“Not yet,” she jokes. “Just hurry back, okay?”

“Soon as we can,” is the reply, Clint’s voice softer, more serious.

“Alright, Igloo Base out,” she says and then shuts the radio off. She looks up at him watching her, and unzips her coat pulling it off and tossing it over the back of one of the chairs. “You hungry, Barnes? Cause I could eat.”

He nods and helps her get out two of the prepackaged meals and heat them up.

They eat in awkward silence, the tension between them temping back up, now that they aren’t distracted by their life-threatening situation.

“So,” Darcy starts, and Bucky’s reminded of their talk, the one he handled so badly, right before she decided to leave. “Why are you here, Barnes?”

He hates that she calls him that, misses the way she’d say ‘Bucky’ when she’d tease him and flirt with him, but knows he’s probably ruined that forever. Why had he come? Why had he dropped everything and insisted on being part of the team to run to her rescue the second he thought she might be in danger? Because he couldn’t not come. It wasn’t in him to just say, ‘oh, well, I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ and let it go.

She’s waiting for him to answer, though, so he shrugs and says, “I was worried about you. I know it must be hard for you, with the cold and everything.”

“That’s funny. You didn’t really seem to give a shit about it before,” she snarks, and he can tell she’s going for sarcastic and funny, but he can hear enough of the bitterness, see it in the way her mouth tightens around the words, that he knows there’s a part of her that actually believes that.

“I do give a shit,” he refutes, though there was no heat behind the words. He had very deliberately chosen to push this girl away. He didn’t want to undo all that effort. It had been hard enough to manage the first time, but it just seemed like a push too far to let her continue to think he didn’t care at all.

“Could’a fooled me,” she mutters under her breath and he winces.

He looks at her, staring into her food, sad and obviously hurting, and it’s all his fault. Bucky remembers vividly the way her lips curled back over her smile, and the way her eyes would shine when she was saying something amusing or witty, which was most of the time. She’s a pale shadow of that girl and he thinks that maybe his biggest crime of all is tearing this girl down until she is just as surly and broken as he is.

Regret, deep and heavy, expands to fill every corner of his being.

He didn’t want this. He never wanted this. He wanted her happy and safe, but here she is, stuck in a blizzard at the end of the world, miserable and in pain.

It’s entirely possible that he made the wrong choice.

“I’m sorry. I never meant to make you think I didn’t care. I do care, Darcy. Probably too much,” he whispers around a hard swallow. He knows he should probably stop talking, should leave her be and let her heal and move on, but he can’t seem to get his mouth to stop moving, or the words to cease.

“It was all too much. You were there and you were so beautiful and perfect and you made me feel things…things I barely remember as possible. I was so happy, and then- Then I was so scared, so afraid of being the reason you got hurt, or worse. With all the sins on my head, that was the one I just couldn’t  bear. I thought…I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know what it would do to you to push you away. I can’t even understand why… I just wanted you to be happy, to be safe.”

Bucky looks up to find her crying into her spoon.

“I was happy,” she spoke, as quiet as breathing, and he almost missed it. When she looked up at him, her eyes were wide and her jaw tight. “I was so happy, and I knew- I knew, the second I let you in that the first time something happened that you wouldn’t be able to handle it. I knew it. That’s why I hesitated so long, but I just couldn’t help myself, and I just hoped that together we could be stronger than all the things that might try to pull us apart.” She reaches up and wipes at her cheeks. “Well, when I’m wrong I am really wrong.”

“It wasn’t you fault, it wasn’t you. You were so strong and bright and solid, it was me. I’m the one that is a broken wreck. I was the one that couldn’t deal with everything. You deserve so much better than me, than… “ He holds how his arms, not even able to find words for the mess that he is.

“I deserve to be happy,” she insists and he nods, agreeing with her. “Well, I was happy. I was happy with you. And don’t try and feed me that bullshit about how your barely human, how you are too broken or fucked up to be happy, because I don’t believe that for a second.”

Darcy grabs the remains of her meal and walks over to the waste receptacle to dispose of it. Her movements are angry and tense. He can’t really blame her.

“I don’t believe in broken people. You’re not some figurine toy that was stepped on or tossed around too hard, you’re a human being. You’ve lived, had experiences. You’ve made choices and you’ve had other people make choices that affected you. That’s life. Sure, you have regrets about some of those things, and some of your experiences have been massively shitty, but if you think for one second you’re the only person who’s experiences trauma or been forced to do awful things to survive, or even had your choices taken away from you. And it sucks! It sucks so much! And it changes you, but it doesn’t break you.”  She’s rants, basically yelling at him at this point.

And she’s magnificent. Even in her rage she mesmerizes him, drawing him in like the fire for his pore fluttering, dusty soul.

“Humans don’t break and keep going. If we really truly break, then we die. Most of the time life is hard and it’s terrible, but we adapt, we change, we learn, and we survive. When horrible things happen they leave scars, but scars aren't something to hide or be ashamed of! Scars mean we’re still breathing, they mean were living on stronger than ever. You’re stronger than ever, probably stronger than anyone I’ve ever know.”

Darcy seems to run out of steam then as she slides down to the floor, her back against the side of a large storage pantry. “And don’t tell me you can’t be happy, either, ‘cause I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you happy. Or at least, I thought you were…” When she looks up at him her eyes are shimmering with fresh tears and he feels desperate to chase them away, to bring back that passionate spit fire that was just raining down truth and judgement on his head. “It wasn’t all a lie, was it?” she sniffles and he slides off his chair to walk around and kneel before her.

“No, it wasn’t a lie,” he sighed and fought the need to reach for her. “The only lie was me trying to tell myself that I could live without you. I’m so sorry, Darcy. I don’t know why my brain wanted me to think this would be better. It isn’t. I know that now. I… I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I’m so sorry. I never wanted this for you. I never… Jesus, you must hate me.”

Darcy makes a sound, a choked off laugh/sob that brings his eyes up to hers.

“I don’t hate you, Buckaroo. I could never hate you.” Her eyes are shining brightly at him, filled with love and hope and it jump starts his heart.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he says softly. “Tell me it’s not too late, Darcy. Tell me what I can do to make it better.”

“Promise me,” she whispers right back. “Promise me you won’t ever push me away like that again.”

Bucky feels his throat clench tight, trapping the words in his throat. When he doesn’t say the words, her face starts to fall, starts to buckle like a poorly made sandcastle, and he feels the pain of it so sharply, he gasps and reaches out to her, pulling her against him.

He knows he would do anything for this girl.

“I promise I’ll do my best. My mind… it doesn’t always listen to what I say, but I can promise I’ll try,” he says into her hair and he feels her melt against him, her arms going around his waist as she holds him tight.

“I know, I… I know that sometimes you need a while to process stuff, that things can seem like it’s too much, all at once… I never… I never want to pressure you or push you into something you’re not ready for. That’s why I tried to wait. I’ll wait, Bucky, as long as it takes, as long as you’ll come back to me when you’re ready.” Her words are desperate, but sincere, and he can feel the beating of her pulse against his cheek, where he’s tucked against her neck.

“I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long…” he says and can’t help the small smile that curls the corners of his mouth. “As long as you promise to kick my ass, like you just did, whenever I’m being a total ass.”

She laughs against him and it sounds like choirs of heavenly hosts and feels like heaven.

“I think that’s a promise I can keep,” she chuckles and pulls back.

“Good,” he grins. “Well, now that that’s settled, what the hell are we going to do the rest of the time we’re stuck here?”

“Oh, I have a few ideas…” she leers suggestively and he laughs, already feeling 1000 times lighter. “You can start by giving me that kiss you owe me.”

“Uh, I think you have that wrong, doll. If I remember correctly, it’s you that owes me a kiss,” he beamed.

“Yeah, but everyone knows your memory is for shit, Barnes,” Darcy teased, but when he opened his mouth to argue, she pressed her mouth to his and silenced him.

Not that he was complaining. She was so soft and warm and perfect. He wondered how he had gotten to this moment, earned his second chance, and finally decided he was actually grateful for the blizzard. It was a very odd sensation.

He’d never been so glad for winter. 


	8. Wintershock Epilogue- Bonus Smut

Darcy is torn.

On one hand, she promised not to push Bucky on things that he wasn't ready for yet. Like, literally, not even 10 minutes ago, she'd told him that she was willing to wait.

On the other hand, she really doesn't want to wait. They are stuck here, probably for days, with nothing to do, and here he is, warm and firm against her as his mouth presses and pulls and teases against hers in all the best possible ways.

She wanted her kiss, and, boy was she getting it!

The last residual traces of the cold she'd felt closing in when they'd been out in the snow were completely obliterated. She is so warm, almost hot, and her layers of clothing were suddenly too much.

When she needs air more than she needs to keep kissing him, Darcy leans back, her mouth open as she pants, and Bucky hovers over her, his forehead pressed to hers.

"We should...slow down?" She asks, kicking herself internally, but knowing this fragile thing with him must be handled with care. It's worth some restraint, she thinks.

"Oh, uh, yeah. That's probably, that's wise," Bucky agrees, but he sounds just as disappointed as she is. He sits down next to her, his back propped against the wall and his shoulder pressed to hers.

They both stay just like that, breathing hard and willing sense to return.

"I have cards in my bag. I could teach you how to play golf," she suggests and crawls over to where her bag is leaning against the foot of one of the cots. When she turns back around she catches him staring at her ass, and shoots him a wink and a smirk. She's glad she's not the only one that has their mind in the gutter.

He shakes himself and looks at her face, flushed and looking a little stunned. "Golf, you said? With cards?"

"Yep, it's fun. I usually play it with my nephew, Ben. He almost always wins, so it'll be nice to be able to be the one thoroughly trouncing my opponent for once." She feels good. A bit light headed and like she's living in a dream, but happy.

"Bring it on, Darcy," he smirks back, looking smug. It's so nice to have her Bucky back. Finally.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They might have managed to keep their hands off of each other if the storm had only lasted the predicted 4 days. They played lots of cards, (Darcy did win a lot at first, but after Bucky started to get the hang of it he started winning more and more), and talked and flirted and got to know each other better asking lots of questions and telling stories.

They also share lots of deep, soul warming kisses and tentative touches and heated glances. It's a sort of slow tortured that leaves her blood at a constant low simmer for him, her underwear almost continually damp from the way he makes her feel just by being close enough to touch.

On the morning of day 6, however, the whole thing just gets to be too much. Darcy actually wakes up before Bucky for a change, and decides, after staring out the small port window to see it now covered completely by snow that she needs a long hot shower. Perhaps even the longest, hottest shower in the history of all long, hot showers.

She's so sick of snow she's seriously considering moving to Florida, which is humid and does terrible things to her hair, but it might be worth it if she never has to see cold, white stuff falling from the sky ever again.

She gets her hair washed and soaps up her body with her body wash and loofah, letting the steam from her epic, amazing shower keep her warm. Darcy makes a mental note to send Tony Stark the fanciest gift basket she can afford as a thanks for their set up. She things he might have put one of those mini-arc reactors in their water heater.

She's got conditioner in, letting it sit while she brushes her teeth, when she starts hearing the noises from the other room.

The moans and half spoken words are definitely running in the bad dream vein, so she rinses quickly and shuts off the water. She wraps her hair in one towel, turban style, and another around her body and peeks out the door, where she can see Bucky lying on his cot, sleeping bag twisted around him as he twitches and scowls in his sleep.

"No...don't..." He whispered and his voice is so helpless, so full of despair that she goes to him.

"Bucky," she whispers loudly. "You're dreaming, Buck, wake up. It's just a dream." She tries not to touch him, but he whimpers and her heart breaks. She puts one hand on his shoulder, gently caresses the curve of it and hopes he can feel her warmth and sympathy.

He takes a quick, shallow breath and then his eyes flutter open. He lays there, looking up at her for a few seconds before he sighs and some of the tension eases out of his body.

"You okay now?" She asks, her hand running down his arm to slide into his and she lowers herself to perch on the edge of his cot. He squeezes it and nods, not quite ready for words yet.

Darcy just sits with him, holding his hand and sending happy thoughts at him while he recovers.

Eventually, he gives her a soft smile and pushes himself up onto his elbows, pulling his hand from hers as he moves. "Thanks, Darce."

"Sure, soldier. Anytime," she adds as she stands and steps back, one hand going to the top of her towel to grip it tightly and keep it in place.

His eyes move over her slowly and he takes a deep breath. "What are you...?"

She blushes and tips her head towards the bathroom. "I was just in the shower. I'm gonna go...finish up."

He swallows loud enough for her to hear and nods again. "Okay."

She grabs her face wash out of the shower and walks over to the sink to use it. She takes the towel off her head and pats her face dry, rubbing excess water from her hair next and then laying it on the sink.

She's moving to grip the terry cloth draped around her body when she glances up in the mirror to see Bucky standing behind her, in the door way, watching her.

His pupils are blown wide open and his breathing is slow, but deep enough she can see his chest expanding with every breath. His lips are parted slightly and she feels her pulse accelerate as she watches his tongue flick out over them.

"I dreamed you were gone," he admits quietly. "I need to... Can I just...?" Bucky steps closer, his hand reaching out to her and she nods.

His arms go around her waist and he hugs his body up against her back, his face tucks into her neck and he just holds her and breathes.

"Smell good..." He murmurs against her ear and she feels him turn his face just enough to get his mouth on her throat, just behind her ear. It's not really a kiss, just his mouth connected to skin, but he hums softly and she feels it all the way down to her toes.

Darcy can't help but raise her arms to lay them over his and press his limbs even tighter to her,, twining her fingers between his, one set flesh, the other metal. She tilts her head and arches slightly, sinking into the circle of his embrace.

"Want you..." He says with a sigh and nuzzles against her shoulder, nipping lightly at the fresh, pale curve.

"Uh huh," she whimpers eloquently and feels him chuckle against her back. "Please," she adds, voice high and light.

"Yes," he agrees, one hand sliding slowly up to cup her left breast while the other settles down around her hips and presses her back against his groin. She can definitely feel him, hard and ready, and she moans softly at the contact, now made with intent.

She reaches up to pull her hair to one side and grinds back against him.

He grunts and his hips jerk slightly in response. "Darcy, baby, sweetheart, I need you, doll. Need to see you. Need to feel you. Need to taste you." His words are all interwoven with the tiny, delicate kisses he's leaving over every inch of exposed skin he can reach with his gorgeous mouth.

It's her turn to agree, hissing a slow, low, "Yeeessssssss..." as he kneads her breast and thumbs over her nipples, hard as a pebble, through the thick plush material of the towel. His hips are rolling slowly, pressing rhythmically against her backside as he uses his metal hand to part the towel and caress the top of her right thigh and up over her hip.

He takes his time, exploring her with his hands on her breasts and thighs and hips and over her stomach, and with his mouth on her neck and shoulders and along her jaw. After a few minutes of this, however, Darcy's desperate to get her hands and mouth on him. She turns in his arms then, her towel falling to a crumpled heap around her feet as she lifts up on her tip toes and slides her arms around him, one up over his neck and into his hair, the other under his right around and around his back as she pulls his mouth down to meet hers.

Bending at the waist, Bucky wraps his arms under her thighs and lifts her right off her feet and graciously holds her up so that she doesn't have to stretch to get to all the places she wants to touch and taste.

Well, okay, not ALL of them, but...you know...for now.

He hums in approval when she runs her fingers through his long hair and tugs on it at the roots to get him to turn his head enough to put her lips over the pulse point on his throat. She weighs and measures every little response she gets as she licks and kisses and presses her teeth into the expanse of his neck and shoulders and the strong, aching curve of his collar bone and the dip above his sternum.

Her left hand works at building a 3D image in her mind of just how incredible the muscles of his back are as they bunch and flex and work together to hold her up and keep him pressed between her legs, though his pesky shirt is between his skin and hers.

He's breathing hard, well- they both are- when he sets her down next to the sink and she squeaks and shivers as the cold metal touches her ass.

"Sorry, sugar," he pants from between his kiss swollen lips, red and puffy like Satan’s own smirk. "You just cleaned up and I'm gett'n you all dirty again." His Brooklyn in coming in loud and clear as his eyes travel down over the front of her, glassy, but still warm.

"Maybe you should jump in the shower and get cleaned up, too," she suggests and leans toward to tug the hem of his shirt up and slide her hand over his abs and up to his chest.

His muscles are so firm and solid under her hand, but his skin is soft and the slide of him under her fingers and palm send a jolt of heat and want right between her legs. He nudges his hips against her, reminding her that he's there, that he's just as ready as she is, at if she could forget.

"Don't wanna leave ya," he whispers and presses a gentle kiss to the arch of one cheekbone, rubbing his face against hers and he leans in to kiss her ear and suck a lobe between his teeth. "Don' eva wanna stop touch'n ya," he mutters with her ear lobe in his mouth and she can't help but giggle and flinch away from the too ticklish touch.

"Who said anything about leaving me?" she inquires primly as she searches out a nipple and scrapes her nails over it once she locates it, grinning at the way he hisses and his back arches, hips jerking closer to her.

"You gonna scrub my back?" He asks and she rolls her eyes. She's pretty sure she's seen this porno before.

"Sure. I'm very helpful like that."

So sue her, she has a thing for shower sex scenes.

She smacks his ass and laughs when he yelps and twitches. "Go on then, soldier." She tilts her chin towards the shower and pushes him away with the hand resting between his pecs. "You might want to consider a wardrobe change first, though. I think you're a little over dressed for the shower."

He grunts and tweaks one of her nipples briefly right before pulling away. "Smartass," he jokes.

"Tease!" She accuses, lifting a hand to her poor abandoned flesh. Darcy holds her arm across her breasts as she leans back to watch him watch her while he starts stripping down for his shower.

She presses her knees together and crosses her ankles and he frowns as his all-access view is blocked. "Now who's a tease?" he asks as he tosses his shirt on to the counter next to her.

"Still you," she banters, her voice deeper and a little tougher than normal as her eyes roam over his sculpted form. She's seen him shirtless before, but she's not sure it's a sight she'll ever not get a bit dizzy over.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at that and then turns to put his back to her before he shoves his borrowed sweatpants down to the his ankles and steps out of them. If he thinks he's cheating her, he's underestimating her appreciation of his tight, bite able backside.

"Hm..." she hums appreciatively as he struts over to turn on the shower and slide under the still warm deluge. She waits, watching his every move as he squirts shampoo into his hand and then works it into his dripping hair. With his arms up and his muscles wet and beautiful in their efforts she thinks he me just be the most delicious thing she's ever seen.

After scrubbing and rinsing the suds from his head he glances over his shoulder at her and gives her an expectant look. "Thought you were gonna be helpful," he reminds as he reaches for the bar soap on one of the little metal trays that decorate one corner of the stall. "Don't tell me you changed your mind."

She slides silently off the counter and walks over as quietly as she can. "Of course not," she chides as she reaches around him, under his arms and takes the soap from his hand, her breasts pressing up against his water slick back and smiles as he goes stiff with surprise. "I was just enjoying the show," she says as close to his ear as she can get with a solid 8" difference between their heights.

She shivers as she starts working the soap over his chest and stomach, her arms around him and the length of her body pressed to the back of his. She works slowly, taking her time going over his shoulders, arms and back, stomach and thighs, getting everything she can without moving from her place, except for between his legs.

"Darcy," he groans and it's half demanding growl, half pleading moan. It's the most beautiful sound ever and she feels compelled to reward such a lovely sound. Making sure her hands are plenty soapy, she sets the soap back on its tray and then takes his cock in her right hand.

"Ugh," he whimpers and leans over ever so slightly to rest his hand against the stall wall. She pushes on him till he steps forward enough that's the water is coming down over her back and he's able to stand straight and still brace himself as she gives him a very thorough hand job. She uses both hands, alternating them as she strokes, squeezing his length tightly in her fist and pulling off the end of him just as the other grips him around the base and starts the whole wicked process over again.

He is thick and hard and slick in her hands and even though she can't see what she's doing, she has no trouble feeling her way. She starts pressing her mouth to his back, licking water from his skin and nipping sharply with her teeth as she switches her technique up, letting her left hand curl down to cup his balls and changing direction with her right.

Darcy tugs and rolls the sensitive orbs around in her palm, tightening her grip only slightly as she circles her fist around his dick and works up and down on his shaft. She adds a little twist of her wrist at the end and even takes the occasional detour to play with his foreskin.

"You feel so amazing in my hands, Bucky," she murmurs against his back. "I can't wait to feel you between my legs, feel you push inside me and fuck me...god," she groans and tightens her grip on him a bit before relaxing her hold and moving her hand over him a little faster, a little more smoothly.

All his nice wet skin slides like silk on hers and she thinks she could stand her all day, her body curled around his and working him over till he was a quivering writhing mess, but apparently he has other ideas.

His hands fall on hers and he grips them, pulling her away. She frowns, but follows his lead as he lifts his arm and pulls her around to his front. Darcy sticks out her bottom lip and looks up at him. "I was sort of enjoying myself, you know," she pouts.

Bucky has to clear his throat when his first attempt to speak breaks in his throat. "Oh- Oh I know, doll, and I was more than a little tempted to let you continue, believe me, but then I would be remiss in my duty as a gentleman."

She quirks a brow up at that. "Oh? What duty would that be?"

He grins like the canary-munching cat and cups her face with both hands. "Ladies first," he intones primly before leaning over to kiss her in a manner that is anything but prim, or gentlemanly.

Since kissing Bucky is her new favorite thing to do, she doesn't complain.

Instead she plasters herself to his front; his is cock pressed against her stomach between them and she reaches around to squeeze his ass. He returns the favor and she finds herself nearly overwhelmed with wanting him and having him and not being able to get enough of him.

She gropes him some more, then runs her fingers between his firm cheeks and down over his puckered hole, making him jerk in surprise and lift his face for the air necessary to complete his gasp.

She eases her hands up to his back and puts them firmly in safer territory.

"Sorry?" She says, but she isn't really, and she doesn't sound it either.

"Uh huh, n-not buying it," he stammers very slightly and she's proud of the effect she had on him, even if that particular tactic might need some discussion before implementation.

Still, he doesn't look turned off. Far from it. His eyes are hooded as they drift down over her face and upper chest. He reaches past her to turn off the water and releases her in favor of pushing his hair back off his face and ringing water from it. "I think I'm as clean as I'll ever be," he says, getting his center back. "Come on, trouble."

Darcy is a little worried that maybe she turned him off after all. He says nothing as he hands her a new towel and begins drying himself off, quickly and efficiently.

She wrings out her own hair and then squeezes it with the towel she threw over her head. With it over her head she can't see what he's doing now, but she feels him reach out and steady her waist before using his towels to wipe down her chest and back and hips. He even runs the cloth down over her legs, one after the other, while he crouches before her.

She stands up straight and lets her own towel fall to her shoulders so she can look down into his face, relieved to see his expression is open and warm. He leaned forward and places a soft little kiss to her tummy, right below her belly button and then rises up to stand before her again.

Darcy takes her opportunity to glance down over his naked front, her eyes taking in all the little details with appreciation: the scars on his shoulder, the pebbled hardness of his nipples, the ridges and shadows of his 6-pack, and the big, uncut cock jutting out between his strong, muscled thighs.

"Yummy," she sighs in delight and licks her lips.

"Yep, definitely trouble," he says and takes her hand gently and leads her back out to the main room. He takes his towel, still clutched in his other hand and lays it down over the top of his sleeping bag, turns and sits down on it and then pulls her forward and lifts her into his lap.

The cot complains with one quick creak, but it's Stark made, so she figures it should hold both of them just fine. She straddles his hips and sits back on his knees, her hands on top of his shoulders, helping to steady her.

"Hey there, handsome," she smiled down at him and he smiled back, winking at her playfully.

"Hey there, beautiful." He runs his hands up and down her back. "Jesus, you're perfect," he mutters as his eyes moved from her eyes to her mouth and down over her chest and between her spread thighs.

"Oh, well," she demurred, blushing slightly.

"I mean it, Darce," he says seriously as he looks her right in the eye and gives her the most intense, meaningful gaze of her life. It takes her breath away for a second.

"If you say so," she admits finally, her heart melting into a puddle between her legs.

"I do," he insists and she leans into reward him with a soft, close-mouthed kiss.

"You aren't so bad yourself, Buck," she teases lightly, trailing her fingers down off his shoulders to brush over his chest. Her right hand then moves over to trace along the edge of his metal limb. "You can't even imagine what you do to me," she whispered, her eyes following her hand as she caresses down over his shiny deltoid and bicep.

"I might have some idea," he hints with enough heat in his voice to make her eyes flutter shut and her center grow that much tighter and hotter, as she fights the desire to just rise up and impale herself on him.

The struggle is very real.

Except they have a problem.

"Um... We might have a problem," she bemoans and lays her forehead against the top of his right shoulder.

"What's that, babe?" He sounds distracted, and his hands are making interesting patterns along the back of her neck and down the length of her spine and over the curve of her ass.

"I don't have any condoms with me. I mean, I didn't come up her planning on doing anything but moping and doing everything to keep myself from freezing my ass off, which means not getting naked, so..." she turns her face into him and watches her right hand run down his chest and trace the bend and turn of his flesh, flicking a nipple or brushing over the tip of his erection.

"I didn't bring any..." he sighs. Wasn't planning on this being an extended trip." He takes a deep breath and she can feel him getting ready to say something he's worried she won't like. "We don't...actually...need one," he manages to get out slowly."

"Uh huh, I've heard that one before, Don Juan," she says rolling her eyes.

"No, I mean...we don't actually need one at all. I'm clean. Can't catch or carry anything, and I can't-" He cuts off and goes tense against her. "I can't get you pregnant. Ever."

She lifts her face to look him in the eye, though he does his best to examine the ceiling, wall, floor- anything but her.

"Are you sure?" She asks, a little stunned. "I mean... You have super healing and stuff, right?"

Bucky's grunt is humorless. "When hydra found out I couldn't pass down the effects of the serum genetically they...Well, let's just say they made sure. Most days I'm just glad they left me able to...you know...perform."

"Shit, Bucky, I didn't know..." She looks at him with sympathy and compassion, but refuses to pity him. He is not pitiful. He is more than his ability to reproduce and he's right. It's best to look on the bright side and count their blessings.

"Its fine. How could you?" He sounds resigned and dismissive.

"Well, I guess that's good news for us, though," she says, giving him a shy smile. "We can enjoy all the perks with none of the consequences, right? Silver lining."

He meets her eyes then, looking for something, but finding only love and acceptance and low-burning passion.

"Right," he agrees eventually and smiles back at her. It's soft and grateful and it lifts her spirits to know they jumped this emotional hurdle together without any serious fallout. Which is really her primary concern, despite the impending sexy times.

She kisses him again, her tongue dancing and teasing over the seam of his lips playfully until he opens his mouth to her and she falls into him, her chest squishing nicely against his and her hips sliding closer to him.

They continue making out, Darcy in his lap, their kisses becoming desperate and their hands clutching and grasping at the other as they do everything in their power to get as close as possible.

"I've never...never...had sex...without...without a condom...before," she says between kisses as she goes up on her knees and rubs herself along the hot length of his shaft. "I hear...it's amazing...though..."

"It is..." He moans against her mouth as he shifts his grip on her to her hips and presses her harder against him. "You'll love it... I hope."

"I will," she says, leaning back a bit and tilting her hips to get the right angle. "I'm glad it's with you."

"Oh, me too, Darcy love, me too." He reaches down to take himself in hand and position himself properly. "You ready?"

She nods and her breath hitches as she feels him slot into place. She lowers herself slowly, head tipped back and eyes closed as she focuses on the feeling of enveloping the smooth, silky press of his cock sliding up into her.

She's wet and ready, and he's thick and hard and fills her just right.

"Bucky," she whines as her hips settle down against his. "Oh, God, Bucky..."

"You all right, Darce?" He asks, panting and lifting his hands to hold her face again, looking right into her eyes.

"So all right..." She whimpers and rolls her hips in a tentative circle. She revels in the way his eyes flutter shut and he arches his back to press up into the feeling. "Fill me so good, Barnes," she moans and rocks up and down experimentally.

"Don't call me that," he gasps, shaking his head and reaching to slide his arms around her again. "Not right now."

"Fine then," she acquiesces, leaning back and looking at him, feeling mischievous. "Fuck me, Bucky," she commands and his reaction is instantaneous.

"Yes, ma'am," he hums and starts sucking at the side of her neck as he lifts her and then pulls her close again. At the same time he jerks his pelvis up towards her and presses hard and deep in a way that has her shuddering and moaning his name in no time flat.

He leans her back gently, his mouth moving down to her tits as he mouths at them, rubbing the scruff of his stubble against the tender skin and sucking dark little spots into her pale skin.

She puts her hands on his knees and leans back even farther and it's like all the stars overhead have aligned. It's her own sexual convergence. He sucks on the rosy tip of her left breasts while he thrusts up into her, the angle perfect for him to hit her g-spot, which he does, every time.

He leaves one hand on her back to support her and help him control her motion while his other grips front of her hip tightly, his thumb stretching over to rub up against her clit.

"Oh..." She gasps as the first waves of an orgasm spiral higher and higher. "Bucky!" She calls, feeling a little unsure, a little out of control as the pleasure builds and builds and threatens to consume her utterly.

"I've got you, Darcy, I've got you," he says, his face still pressed to hers chest as he moves to the other nipple, and boy, does he ever.

She comes, and it's a powerful starburst of heat and ecstasy that has her shuddering and shaking against him.

He doesn't stop, but his thrusts grow easier, leveling out as he lets her enjoy it. The sharp intensity of it melts away, leaving behind the occasional little after shock of twitchy jolts of lightning through her core and she finds herself wrapping her arms around his neck and grinning at him dreamily.

"That was awesome..." She sighs and he laughs rolls them over with a super skillful, sexy ninja move that leaves him braced over her as he lays her back against his pillow.

"Looked awesome," he agrees. "Felt pretty awesome for me too, sweetheart. Think you've got another one for me?"

She hums in consideration. She still feels good enough that she isn't really concerned about coming again, not just yet, so she shrugs and tells him, "Maybe, I don't know. Seems like a lot of work from here, though..."

"Lazy bones," he says affectionately and gets to work.

She gets her feet against the cot's mattress pad and helps him, eventually, rocking up against him, and meeting him thrust for thrust. She enjoys being able to lay back and watch his face, all the little expressions that pass across it as he fucks her. His neck and chest and arms and abs are also an amazing sight to behold as he flexes and strains and sweats over her.

"Harder," she suggests, lifting her knees and gripping his hips with her thighs as she feels the pressure of another climax start to build.

Bucky seems more than happy to comply. He lowers one arm and grips the back of her leg, under the knee, forcing her a little higher, a little wider and starts getting a little rougher.

It's awesome.

She calls his name as she breaks over the edge of her second orgasm, and he growls and slants his mouth down over hers to swallow the rest of her words.

Darcy is a living puddle of afterglow beneath him as he chases his own pleasure. She gets her hands in his hair and drags her nails over his scalp as she spreads her legs and legs him fuck her like a wild man.

When he comes she feels the heat of his come inside her, but it doesn't really feel like she imagined, which is absolutely the only mildly disappointing thing about this whole day so far.

He goes limp on top of her for a minute, and she cradles him to her, enjoying his weight for a few moments. Too soon he lifts his head and starts to pull away.

"Stay," she says, pulling him back to her. "I just wanna feel you inside me for a while longer." He's still semi-hard, and she was never able to enjoy this before, what with the condom disposal to worry about, so she's relieved when he just relaxes back down, though he does balance some of his weight on his arms, which he slides under her shoulders.

He presses lazy kisses against the top of her shoulder and she keeps running her fingers through his hair and petting the back of his neck. This makes him shiver a little and she starts to think about the fact that he's probably getting chilled with his glorious ass exposed to the air like that.

He doesn't say anything, though, just cuddles against her, still inside her even though he's soft now and she can hardly feel him anymore, because she asked him to. Their skin is slick with sweat and she can feel things dripping down the curve of her ass and he seems to be getting heavier by the second.

Her perfect moment is over, apparently, but she's not too worried. Darcy pats his shoulder and he lifts his head sleepily. "Hm?"

"What do you say we get cleaned up, again, eat some breakfast and check in with the others? Then we can take a nap and get our strength back for round 2 this afternoon. Sound good?" Darcy says, rubbing her one foot up and down the back of his calf, trying to warm him where she can.

Bucky's answering smile is nothing short of angelic. "Sounds perfect, doll. You're on."

"Cool," she croons. Then after a beat, "Okay then, get off'a me, ya big lug. You're squashin' me!"

He laughs, and kisses her, quick and clean and then climbs off her.

When Clint shows up to collect them the next day he rolls his eyes at their hand holding and informs them that he hopes they waited till day 3 before banging like bunnies so that he wins the betting pool.

He's both disappointed and impressed when Darcy informs him they held out till day 6.

"Guess I gave you too much credit, Barnes. Your game must be weaker than I thought," Barton teases, until Darcy smacks him across the back of the head.

"His game is better than fine, Barton. Some people just happen to value things like patience, restraint, and appreciate the anticipation," she tells him, her voice haughty.

"Held out on you, did he?" Clint asks, winking at her and she turns and buried her face against Bucky's chest.

"Longest week of my life!" She declares dramatically, but they all laugh and Bucky puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her against him.

She doesn't have to add that it was a pretty damned good week, too.

They both already know.


End file.
